Ray Lewis: Ravens Didn’t Sign Kaepernick Because of Girlfriend’s ‘Racist’ Tweet

Nessa & Kaep Ready
Getty Images/Taylor Hill
Dylan Gwinn

Ray Lewis dropped a bombshell during his appearance on Inside the NFL on Tuesday night. The former Raven said that Baltimore was close to offering Colin Kaepernick a contract, but changed their minds after Kaepernick’s girlfriend posted a “racist” tweet.

Here’s the transcript of the conversation between Lewis, and host Judy Battista:

Judy Battista: “I’m startled that he has not been signed. I’ve been told ever since I’ve started covering the NFL that talent wins out. We’ve seen teams take chances on a lot of unsavory characters. The fact that this is what has tipped over and they can’t come to grips with signing a guy who has kneeled for the national anthem but you’ve signed guys that have enormous legal issues — and they’ve been embraced by teams and they’ve been embraced by fans — I find that curious.”

Ray Lewis: “When me and Steve Bisciotti were talking, this is what we were talking about, Judy. We were talking about giving this kid an opportunity to get back in the National Football League. Look, this is what I wanted to share with people. I have been fighting for this kid behind the table like nobody has … I’ve never been against Colin Kaepernick. But I am against the way he’s done it.

“Then, his girl [Colin Kaepernick’s girlfriend] goes out and put out this racist gesture and doesn’t know we are in the back office about to try to get this guy signed. Steve Bisciotti has said it himself, ‘How can you crucify Ray Lewis when Ray Lewis is the one calling for Colin Kaepernick?’ …

“When they (Ravens) called me, it was to say, ‘Yes or no?’ … We were going to close the deal to sign him … Steve Bisciotti said, ‘I want to hear Colin Kaeperkick speak to let me know that he wants to play football.’ … And it never happens because that picture comes up the next day. ”

Battista: “So, if not for that … tweet, you think he would be a Baltimore Raven?”

Lewis: “Then he’s flying him to Baltimore.  I am sitting with all three of them and we are all having a conversation about bringing Colin Kaepernick in.”

Just over  a month ago, during this time when Lewis says the Ravens were seriously mulling the idea of signing Colin Kaepernick, the anthem-protesting quarterback’s girlfriend Nessa Diab, posted a tweet. In the tweet, she analogized Ravens Owner Steve Bisciotti and Ray Lewis, with the house slave and racist slave owner characters portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio in “Django Unchained.”

Here’s what she tweeted:

Diab’s racist tweet came in response to Lewis’ comments, where he urged Kaepernick to tone down his activism:

Now, in light of this new information, it’s entirely possible that Lewis appealed to Kaepernick to tone down his activism because he knew how close the Ravens were to signing him. Primarily, due to the behind-closed-doors efforts of Lewis himself. Yet, because Kaepernick and everyone around him is so incredibly toxic and terrible, Diab lashed out and attacked the person who was working harder than anyone else to get her boyfriend signed.

Thus, sabotaging the deal and ruining her boyfriend’s last best chance of getting signed.

This information, if true, completely destroys the media’s narrative that Kaepernick remains unemployed because he’s been blackballed. What this information shows, if true, is that Kaepernick’s own girlfriend blackballed him. However, don’t expect this news to resonate in the the sports media.

The media has kept the Kaepernick story alive all offseason long, by advancing and sustaining the narrative that the league has conspired to exclude Kaepernick because of his politics and race. Therefore, Ray Lewis can expect no small amount of backlash from the liberal sports elite. The idea that Kaepernick’s unemployment could be the fault of anyone other that lily-white millionaire racists, deprives the media of their “precious.”

Their precious being Kaepernick the victim, the innocent, the simple seeker of justice. Beset upon by the dark forces of race and capitalism that seek to destroy him. Moreover, the Kaepernick narrative has become an industry, not just a movement. In a time when cable subscriptions are being cut and people are watching fewer live sporting events. The sports media requires a story that transcends, in order to pump fresh life into the bloated, dying dinosaur that the sports media has become.

Kaepernick isn’t just a political cause for the media, he’s an industry. One that the media deems too big to fail.

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