The Ravens are openly seeking guidance about the effect signing Colin Kaepernick would have on their brand — and so they turned to a former employee who was once charged with murder.
In sussing out the repercussions from bringing on a backup quarterback who knelt for the national anthem last season in protest of the United States’ treatment of minorities, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti and president Dick Cass sought the advice of Ray Lewis, a former Baltimore superstar who led the team to two Super Bowls and also agreed to a plea bargain stemming from a 2000 stabbing that left two dead.
The Ravens front office, in rare NFL transparency about the possibility of signing Kaepernick, admitted that non-football factors are at play with bringing in the former 49er.
“We want to get a sense of what the attitude is out there and how Colin would handle it if he were to come, how he’d handle it and how that would change people’s views,” Cass said, via the team’s website, Sunday at a fan forum in Baltimore.
Bisciotti asked current and former players of the franchise what they think about Kaepernick and the effect signing him would have on the team and its brand.
“It’s been discussed,” Bisciotti said. “We’ve talked to a lot of our current players and a lot of our former players. I was speaking to Ray Lewis this morning. I know Ozzie had a long conversation with Ben Watson. I wouldn’t divulge people’s opinions. But I think you’d be kind of shocked at some people that are against it and some people that are for it. It’s not racialized. It’s not existing players vs. former players. … I care about the fan base, but I have to absorb the opinions of the players that have been there.”
Lewis, now with Fox Sports 1, has been a persistent Kaepernick critic. When Kaepernick’s protest became the talk of the country, Lewis urged the then-49er to “take the flag out of it” while invoking his own military family, appearing to conflate Kaepernick’s protest with protesting the military.
Last month, Lewis said on FS1 that the 29-year-old has to decide if he wants “to play football or do you want to be an activist.”
Kaepernick has remained unsigned all offseason, with words like “blackballed” being tossed around as others argue the once-promising quarterback isn’t enticing enough. Bisciotti acknowledged that the public-relations hit is being considered when they evaluate Kaepernick.
“I know that we’re going to upset some people, and I know that we’re going to make people happy that we stood up for somebody that has the right to do what he did,” Bisciotti said about openly considering the mere possibility of adding Kaepernick. “Non-violent protesting is something that we have all embraced.
“I don’t like the way he did it. Personally, I kind of liked it a lot when he went from sitting to kneeling. I don’t know, I’m Catholic, we spend a lot of time kneeling.”
Ravens starting quarterback Joe Flacco is currently out with a back injury and backup Ryan Mallett had a meltdown in Friday’s practice after throwing several interceptions.Â