Your “It’s Not Free Money” Saturday Evening Open Thread

I moved my music & comedy ramblings to Sunday night, so I could bring this up.

Before it becomes old news, rumours are Kaep settled for between $60-80 million, ostensibly for restraint or loss of trade.

NFL officials reportedly are speculating Colin Kaepernick will be paid as much as $80 million in collusion case settlement https://t.co/wAOwzzlt1j

— Business Insider (@BusinessInsider) February 15, 2019

On the direct “insider” front from Friday night, there was nothing but company line from corporate shill Ian Rapoport,

a little more from Albert Breer,

The NFL has found a way to dodge discovery in open court consistently, and that had to be a huge factor in settling with Kaepernick/Reid. The closer you got to that, the more likely the payout was coming.

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) February 15, 2019

and the usual accuracy we expect from Peter King,

Absolutely. https://t.co/qPJNhHki9v

— Peter King (@peter_king) February 14, 2019

who didn’t tweet a damn thing about the biggest story of the NFL offseason.

Now, Florio – who I goof on occasionally – has the right tack on this, looking at a bigger picture: “Silence becomes a big part of what the league paid for.”

In settling the Kaepernick and Reid collusion grievances, the NFL bought way more than peace https://t.co/P19iYQxhRS

— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) February 15, 2019

Of course, the thinly-veiled racists in the various comment sections have their own taKKKes on it, but the consensus among the football writers is that if the league got away with paying less than $100 million, they got a hell of a bargain.

Tonight’s sports:

• AAFL:
  • Arizona Hotshots at Memphis Express – 8:00PM | NFL Network
    • Fun fact: when the Grizzlies were sold & moved to Memphis, Michael Heisley wanted to change their name to the Express, because he had a marketing deal with FedEx for sponsorship. That was too much for David Stern, who didn’t want teams changing names to suit big-spending clients.
• NHL:
  • Leafs at Coyotes – 7:00PM | CBC
  • Senators at Jets – 7:00PM | Sportsnet1
  • Oilers at Islanders – 7:00PM | Sportsnet
  • Habs at Bolts – 7:00PM | City
  • Canucks at Sharks – 10:00PM | CBC

• NBA:
  • NBA All-Star Saturday Night – 8:00PM | TNT / TSN
    • the various “skills” competitions

• NCAA:
  • Basketball:
    • *North Carolina State at Duke – 6:00PM | ESPN
    • Memphis at UCF – 6:00PM | ESPN2
    • Temple at South Florida – 6:00PM | ESPNU
    • Iowa at Rutgers – 6:00PM | FS1
    • Tennessee at Kentucky – 8:00PM | ESPN
    • Washington at Washington State – 8:00PM | ESPNU
    • Gonzaga at San Diego – 10:00PM | ESPN
    • UCLA at Stanford – 10:00PM | ESPN2
    • Arizona State at Utah – 10:00PM | FS1
    • UC (Santa Barbara) at UC (Irvine) – 12:00AM | ESPN2
  • Hockey:
    • Wisconsin at Notre Dame – 6:00PM | NBCSN

I figure that as long as the AAFL are going to give us games, we might as well half-assedly follow them. After all,

IT’S NOT LOVE THAT KEEPS US TOGETHER!