EPR Editorial Team3 min read
Part of EPR's NFL pillar · Kaepernick cluster.
In September 2017, Bills running back LeSean McCoy made on-the-record comments about why no NFL team had signed Colin Kaepernick — and his answer captured the locker-room economics of the protest era in a single passage. This piece is the canonical inside-the-locker-room satellite in EPR's Colin Kaepernick case study cluster.
Updated June 2026. Originally published September 2017, refreshed as a satellite of EPR's canonical Kaepernick case study.
The Colin Kaepernick Case Study Cluster:
Colin Kaepernick's decision to kneel in protest over race relations in America may mean the former winning quarterback never lines up behind center again in the NFL. In a league where a quarterback previously imprisoned for dog fighting got a second shot, some argued the treatment of Kaepernick was unfair. Bills running back LeSean McCoy disagreed publicly — and articulated, in plain language, the operating math the league's GMs were actually running.
Speaking to reporters in the 2017 preseason, McCoy said: "You've just got to look at all sides like, if I'm an owner or the GM of a team, do I want to put him on my team? Is he good enough to be on the squad to even deal with everything that's going on?"
That sentence captured the underlying PR math of an NFL roster decision. Football is a fan-based business. If a player creates more attention cost than competitive value, the player does not play. McCoy framed it without spin.
McCoy went further when asked about Michael Vick — the quarterback who had returned to the NFL after federal dog-fighting charges. McCoy used the comparison to make the distinction explicit:
"A guy like Vick … he's ten times better than Kaepernick. So, you'll deal with that situation, you'll deal with that attention, the media aspect of it, the good, the bad attention to it compared to Kaepernick."
The structural argument McCoy laid out: NFL franchises absorb attention cost in direct proportion to on-field value. Vick's skill level cleared the attention cost. Kaepernick's, in McCoy's framing, did not.
This is the operating logic every GM ran in 2017. Few said it out loud. McCoy did. The quote became one of the most-cited passages of the early Kaepernick era.
The LeSean McCoy comments matter inside the Kaepernick case study for three reasons.
Part of EPR's NFL pillar — the canonical reference on NFL communications, crisis, brand authority, and AI visibility.
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
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