When over is truly over

 Look, no one wants to see Colin Kaepernick's fairy tale come true more than me. I'm a sucker for fairy tales like everyone's a sucker for 'em. Maybe more so, because as a retired member of the sportswriting clan I can tell you we're all just rubes looking for the pea under the shell when it comes to heartwarming tales of redemption.

Despite what you may have heard about us.

But I read now that Kap's agent has reached out to the New York Jets, and I put my head in my hands. Yes, the Jets need a QB now that God so cruelly teased them with Aaron Rodgers before blowing up his Achilles four snaps into the season. This means Zach Wilson the Sequel, and heaven knows Jets fans saw enough of the original.

But Colin Kaepernick?

Might as well dust off Joe Willie and suit him up again.

I say this because it's been seven years since Kap took an NFL snap, and seven years is like seventy in quarterback years. And Kap was a backup even then, before he got run out of the league for being too public about black people winding up dead when they shouldn't have in encounters with police.

Knelt for the national anthem, that was his crime. Didn't drop trou and moon the flag. Didn't spit on The Troops or piss on Francis Scott Key's picture. Just knelt silently.

Lotta NFL fans didn't like that, even though more than several routinely hit the head or scratch their asses or continue chatting during the anthem. Which means they weren't really all mad about Kaepernick "disrespecting America" like they said, but about why he was doing it. Hell, if he'd been protesting gun laws or Mexican illegals, they might have been applauding him.

But Kap's protest wasn't politically correct, at least with the NFL power base. So he was blackballed. And that was simply wrong.

In a perfect world -- a fairy tale world -- that means the Jets would sign Kap and he'd lead them to the Super Bowl, and all of us in the sportswriting clan would be absolutely writing the hell out of it.

But after seven years away from the game?

Not gonna happen. Couldn't possibly happen. The Packers will dig up Bart Starr and start him Sunday against the Falcons first. Ditto the Washington Commanders and Sammy Baugh.

No, sir. Unfortunately, Kap's just another guy channeling John Blutarski these days.

Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing's over until we decide it is!

Yeah, um, about that, Kap.

Dude. It's over.