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Bay Area Blogger Tells Chip Kelly that Colin Kaepernick Should Refuse to Answer Media's Questions

This Kaepernick thing is making people so crazy a columnist actually said he should refuse to answer questions.

Chip Kelly and reporter have a back-and-forth on Kaepernick's activism (via @SakamotoRyan) pic.twitter.com/Tw0dTdVelm
— Kevin Jones (@Mr_KevinJones) September 22, 2016

This Colin Kaepernick story will not end, and that's a good thing, but it is also driving people insane, which might be a less good thing. How else to explain this exchange, between San Francisco 49ers head coach Chip Kelly and Bay Area Blogger Lowell Cohn in which Cohn argues that the quarterback should refuse to answer questions from the media. That is really what he said.

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Before actively sabotaging his own livelihood, though, Cohn did some amateur psychoanalysis/classic bullshit narrative creating for his outfit, The Cohn Zone. Here's a partial transcript concerning Kaepernick:

Lowell Cohn, for the Cohn Zone: How do you feel when he takes over the locker room and he talks about his concerns—which are valid and important—I think specifically about after the Rams win, when you beat the Rams and he was talking about injustice in America and I believe some of the players were uncomfortable with that. How do you feel when he takes over the room?

Chip Kelly: I don't think Colin takes over any room.

LCCZ: Oh, he did after the Rams game.

CK: Well I can give you my opinion, I think he's asked questions about stuff and he's answering those questions.

LCCZ: He should turn down—he should say talk to me another time.

(So we'll pause here for a second and just note that Lowell Cohn of The Cohn Zone goes on to say that he was present when Kaepernick supposedly "took over" the locker room after that Rams win. Yet, FOR SOME REASON, the Cohn Zone did not ask any players whether they felt uncomfortable with it. Instead, he simply said he believed it to be the case. Lowell, blogger-to-blogger, my advice would be to ask those players if they are uncomfortable rather than projecting your own emotions on a vague collection of possibly made-up players. This way you can avoid getting pantsed by an NFL coach in a press conference in front of your peers.)

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LCCZ: Anyway so we disagree if he took over the room. Do you think it's appropriate that he should be talking about those things after a win?

CK: Yeah, I do.

LCCZ: OK.

(Pausing here for another brief moment for two reasons. First, as Kelly has touched on, he is answering questions. Not many bloggers go to journalism school anymore, I know, but a fundamental aspect of answering a questions requires that someone, preferably someone other than the person answering, ask a question necessitating the answer. Also, would it be better to talk after a loss? Worse?)

CK: When he's asked a question I think he should answer what his feelings are on those questions. If you don't believe that's the thing then maybe you shouldn't ask him those questions.

LCCZ: I didn't ask him those questions.

(Mature.)

CK: OK.

LCCZ: We have a fundamental disagreement then.

Alright, so Cohny got pretty heavily owned in this exchange. I particularly enjoyed Chip Kelly pointing out the absurdity of a member of the media complaining about distractions that he is complicit in creating. Kaepernick didn't take over the room, reporters and hack columnists took over the room to talk to the backup quarterback because they want a story.

And, I promise you, not a single person on this green earth gives one fuck whether the guy who writes the Cohn Zone has a fundamental disagreement with Chip Kelly on any of this. Why Cohn felt the need to say that out loud at a press conference in which he came off as a completely out of touch and simplistic fool—wait, maybe I just answered my own question.