During this week’s episode of Open Late, host Peter Rosenberg sat down with Lil Rel Howery and former NFL star Chad Ochocinco, who both shared their honest thoughts about the future of Colin Kaepernick’s professional career.
Ochocinco said the quarterback’s collusion case against the league has pretty much sealed his fate. Though he doesn’t believe Kaepernick will return to the NFL, he’s hopeful that the former 49er will come out on top.
“It's gotten too far—far beyond repair, especially since the collusion suit has been filed and everything is going forward,” Ochocinco said around the 1:35 mark in the video above. “He won't play again, but I have a very strong feeling that he's going to win.”
Ochocinco went on to address his previous statements about Kaepernick’s protest during the national anthem. In 2017, the 40-year-old athlete criticized the NFL and conservatives for “whitewashing” Kaepernick’s political demonstrations, insisting his critics were missing the true message.
“The message is what got whitewashed. We’re forgetting why he’s kneeling,” he told Rosenberg.
Ochocinco added that he supported Kaepernick’s position, but he personally would have conveyed the message in a different way.
“A lot of people always turn the question around and ask me what I would’ve done. I don’t think I would’ve kneeled,” he said. “But I would’ve got the exact same message across and intertwined it with my play on the field […] I’m gonna get the message that he’s trying to get across, but I would’ve tied it into the game of football, which probably would’ve been in the celebration. I would’ve gotten the fans involved […] all kinds of stuff.”
You can check out the latest episode of Open Late in the video above. Internet star Shiggy also stopped by the studio to discuss his rise to fame, meeting Drake, and more.
