It’s hard to say what’s worse: Being a sore loser or an annoying winner. Colin Kaepernick made a lot of mistakes that cost the San Francisco 49ers at the end of their NFC championship game with the Seattle Seahakws, but he forgets his own moments that lacked class and radiated with arrogance as he criticizes Richard Sherman.
The rivalry between the 49ers and the Seahawks keeps on making headlines even when there’s no game between the two teams for at least eight months. It’s become the premier rivalry in the NFL, one that takes center stage even when the Broncos are playing against the Seahawks, while the 49ers are watching from home.
It’s difficult for someone as confident as Kaepernick to see his rivals playing for the Super Bowl, a game he almost ended up on the winning side of last season. He won’t be watching, he won’t be rooting for the Seahawks (obviously), and he’s still angry about Richard Sherman making the post-game “interview” about attacking Michael Crabtree.
To me, it was ridiculous. But if that’s what you need to do to make yourself feel like a better player, you have to tell everyone, I’m the best corner in the league, go ahead and tell them. At some point, it’s going to catch up to you. I’ll take Crabtree against Sherman any day of the week. If I throw that ball one foot farther, it’s a TD, and now you’re the goat, Richard Sherman. He’s afraid of our receivers, and that’s something I’m looking forward to next year.
You wouldn’t expect anything else from Kaepernick, who is out to defend his teammate and belittle a rival who has made things quite difficult for him since Kaepernick began playing for the 49ers midway through the 2012 NFL season, especially on visits to Seattle, where he’s 0-3 with some awful numbers, adding two interceptions to the collection, both coming in the fourth quarter, in that NFC championship game.
And while Kaepernick is doing the media circuit, defending his friend and teammate, he forgets his own behavior at the Divisional playoff game in Charlotte with the 49ers beating the Panthers. He forgot his own Superman celebration, borrowing it from Cam Newton in order to mock him. Why? Just because Newton was the number one pick in that draft, while Kaepernick was slightly forgotten and ignored until Jim Harbaugh saw something he liked, and turned it into a quarterback who gets plenty of attention for his ability, potential, failures and behavior.
Kaepernick doesn’t mind mocking opponents or his teammates behaving in a less than orderly fashion on the field as long as he’s winning. When the punishment is headed in the other direction – at him or his teammate Michael Crabtree who didn’t handle the situation with too much dignity and class, than Kaepernick finds the time and venue to complain about Sherman, who didn’t do anything Kaepernick and the 49ers didn’t do before.