Colin Kaepernick & Eric Reid Drop Lawsuit Against NFL

by
Former Writers
February 16, 2019

Brook Ward via Flickr

Colin Kaepernick & Eric Reid Drop Lawsuit Against NFL

pic.twitter.com/5sdcGSuwvW

— Mark Geragos (@markgeragos) February 15, 2019

Colin Kaepernick’s lawyers announced on Friday that he and Eric Reid had dropped their lawsuit against the NFL. For context, Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid filed a grievance against the NFL back in 2017, alleging that the league had colluded to keep them out of the league after Kaepernick’s controversial national anthem protest in 2016. But now, over a year later, the grievance has been resolved. No one knows exactly what happened here, due to the confidentiality agreement seen in the statement above. However, it is assumed that they reached a settlement of some kind.

The idea of the two parties settling has lead to speculation as to how much the NFL paid Kaepernick and Reid in the settlement.

Number NFL team officials are speculating to me is the NFL paid Kaepernick in the $60 to $80 million range.

— mike freeman (@mikefreemanNFL) February 15, 2019

A settlement in this range seems to be what most people are reporting occurred. We will probably never know exactly how much the settlement was for, but it is probably safe to assume that it is somewhere around this range. The parties would have likely calculated the settlement based on projected lost salary, as well as other factors.

So, What Now?

That is an interesting question. A lot of things could happen now. Perhaps now that Kaepernick has settled his grievance with the NFL, he will attempt to continue his football career. He is 31 years old, and theoretically has at least a few more playing years left — provided he’s kept himself in football shape. So it is possible that this settlement will clear the way for Kaepernick to return to football. Something especially intriguing is another piece of news related to Kaepernick that was released Thursday.

Report: Colin Kaepernick asked for $20 million to play in AAF https://t.co/E5UTTqVrB4

— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) February 15, 2019

The fact that news broke that the AAF (Alliance of American Football) reached out to Kaepernick about playing in the league the day before he settled his grievance with the AAF is very interesting. Perhaps Kaepernick settled his suit because he wants to clear the way for playing in the AAF. Although that seems unlikely – since Kaepernick wants $20 million to play in the league – while the league pays all of its players a standardized salary of $75,000. It will certainly be interesting to see what actions Kaepernick takes now that he has dropped his suit against the NFL. Eric Reid’s future is much clearer, though, as he is currently under contract with the Carolina Panthers.