Former Eagles quarterback Michael Vick is in the news for comments he made on Fox Sports 1 about current free agent QB Colin Kaepernick. Vick doesn’t believe Kaepernick is being blackballed by the NFL for the latter's pre-game kneeling routine during the national anthem last season.
Vick said a few things about the former 49ers quarterback on the television show, but his suggestion that Kaepernick should opt for a different hairstyle shorter than an afro has been shared and discussed the most.
"First thing we've got to get Colin to do is cut his hair," Vick said. "Listen I'm not up here to try to be politically correct, but even if he puts cornrows [on], I don't think he should represent himself in that way in terms of just the hairstyle. Just go clean-cut, you know, why not? You're already dealing with a lot of controversy surrounding this issue. The most important thing that he needs to do is just try to be presentable."
Vick has walked back those comments today, but there were plenty of reactions on Twitter to what he initially said, many of them critical. Here are some of them:
Finally, and most importantly, Kaepernick seemed to respond himself to Vick in his own way on Twitter:
Asking Vick to compare his situation to Kaepernick in the first place seems foolish, for the simple reason that Kaepernick didn’t commit a crime.
On the issue of Kaepernick’s play, I also don’t believe there is a good reason that he doesn’t currently have a job. Even if you don’t think that he’s a starting-caliber NFL QB anymore, Kaepernick is clearly one of the best 60 quarterbacks. At the very least, he’s better than some of the league’s backups.