Trent Dilfer Admits To Not Speaking Out Against Child Slavery Because He Didn't Want To Distract His Team

On ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown, former NFL QB Trent Dilfer provided us with his hot take on San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick’s protests during the national anthem.

In the segment, Dilfer was adamant that as a backup quarterback Kaepernick should not speak out on social issues because it was his job to “be quiet and sit back in the shadows.”

“No matter how passionate you are, no matter how much of a burden you have for social issues, you don’t let it get in the way of the team. This is a backup quarterback whose job is to be quiet and sit in the shadows and get the starter ready to play in Week 1. Yet he chose a time where all of a sudden, he became the center of attention.”

The following day, Kaepernick fired back at Dilfer with a fairly thoughtful response

[Saying] ‘You’re a backup quarterback, stay in your place,’ that’s an issue. To me, you’re telling me that my position as a backup quarterback and being quiet is more important than people’s lives. I would ask him to really have a conversation with the families of people that have been murdered and see if he still feels that way, because I bet you he doesn’t. Just ‘cause he hasn’t experienced that type of oppression.

“I hope he goes home and really thinks about what he said, and how it impacts not just me, but how it impacts people whose lives are affected by these issues on a daily basis.”

Yesterday, Dilfer went on KNBR radio station to clarify his comments only to make himself look more foolish in the process.

My wife and I had been introduced to some really disturbing stuff and other social injustices: Childhood slavery in our country. And I’d gone to a couple seminars and presentations where we got really deep in the weeds about this issue. It became a passion of ours to help fight this battle of childhood slavery around the country and I had a very big platform in Seattle and I could have leveraged being a Seattle Seahawk, being an NFL quarterback, done a lot to get that message out there, but I chose not to at the sake of not wanting to disrupt the team and I never want to draw attention to myself, and take it away from Matt, the rest of our team and our preparation to win.”

So Dilfer decided that football was more important than child slavery? Really?