Hammerhead

I mean, the NFL is right now going all out to stop players from protesting during the anthem. 

You can enjoy watching the game without needing to defend the ways of the league. Or at least recognize your contribution to and endorsement of "Don't Speak Too Out of Turn". Maybe you feel that NFL players shouldn't be using their stardom as such a platform, and they should all just be more modest about their views and focus on giving us entertainment product. Fine. Just don't pretend the NFL doesn't put the clamps on controversy.

It doesn't make much sense to me that, given that so many players who've been involved in far greater controversies than this have had no issues finding continued employment in the league, Kaepernick would be the guy they'd all band together to make an example out of.  We'll never know if he'd have found himself unemployed had he chose not to protest or draw other attention to himself (a lot of people thought Miami should've signed him instead of Cutler, but I don't think that a guy who has shown up to press conferences wearing a shirt with Che Guevara on it would warm up to Miami fans very quickly) because it all coincided.  He wanted out of San Francisco and he got out, only to find that nobody was interested in signing a guy who's basically a slightly more talented version of Taylor Martinez.

Have there been 'far greater controversies' than this? It seems like the dominant sports controversy of the day. That's kind of the issue. It's not that this is some giant, targeted conspiracy. NFL teams avoiding controversy is par for the course. It's that this marked him with a huge red flag -- wearing a Che Guevara shirt and all that, in a world where "he deserves a second chance" gets applied to what (IMO, at least) should be far less forgivable.