Akiem Hicks could have said a lot when asked about Colin Kaepernick’s continued unemployment. Instead, he needed only four words to make his point.
“We signed Mike Glennon,” the Bears defensive lineman said Wednesday, via Jason Lieser of the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Bears signed Glennon to a three-year, $45 million contract with $18.5 million guaranteed in March 2017 when Kaepernick was a free agent. Glennon started four games before Mitchell Trubisky took over.
Glennon has signed three times since then, while Kaepernick hasn’t played since 2016. In fact, Kaepernick hasn’t even gotten so much as a workout since parting ways with the 49ers.
NFL teams have blackballed Kaepernick since he took a knee during the national anthem to protest racial inequality, Hicks said.
“All I will say is this: We saw it. We watched how it unfolded,” Hicks said. “And we see that he doesn’t have a job now. This call isn’t to advocate for Kaep getting a job, but he did sacrifice his position for where he is now. His career was ended because of it, in my opinion.”
He then added his exclamation point: “We signed Mike Glennon.”
Hicks later said about his Glennon line, “You heard that, huh? Yeah, I said that. It was a feeling.”
Hicks hopes what’s happening around the world after the death of George Floyd will change things.