Jason Whitlock: “My argument with ‘Kaepernick Disease’ is you have some early success and it brings out an arrogance and confidence, but it’s really important early in your career that you have a humble spirit. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play with confidence but your humble spirit should overwhelm you. I’ve seen Josh Rosen have success as a high school quarterback, a tiny bit of success at UCLA, and this dude is standing up on draft day talking about ‘THE 9 TEAMS WHO PASSED ME UP ARE GOING TO REGRET IT!’ I said that night on Twitter ‘Oh, this dude, This ain’t gonna go good.’ RGIII in that Seattle playoff game his rookie year when he wouldn’t come out of the game and everybody was saying how tough he was and I was like ‘This dude’s ego, this guy thinks he’s Willis Reed, and the Michael Jordan Flu Game.’ I immediately knew RGIII was going to have problems. Cam Newton, when this dude started putting on the bonnets and showing up to every press conference dressed like the Queen of England, you can check the tape at Fox Sports, I was KILLING this dude. This is not what a quarterback and a leader can do in a locker room. This dude is off in La La Land, and it’s going to blow up in his face. I was the biggest Kaepernick fan, he reminded me of John Elway my favorite player of all time… When the guy showed up at the Super Bowl with a woman he was calling his girlfriend that I happened to know what a Las Vegas hooker – I don’t know how I knew but just take my word for it – I was like ‘this is not going to go well’ and I started backing off the Colin Kaepernick bandwagon. I’m looking at Joe Burrow and these small little signs – oh, this dude wants to talk about abortion, oh, he wants to talk about guns, oh, he wants to put on the big gold chain, he’s got the cigar, he’s got all the swag – I’m like, ‘you’re carrying himself like a wide receiver, bro’, this will not go well. This is ‘Kaepernick Disease’, this is trying to be more than an athlete, it won’t go well. There is a problem with Joe Burrow.” (Full Video Above)
Watch Jason Whitlock of ‘Fearless’ explain in more detail why he believes Joe Burrow has ‘Colin Kaepernick Disease’, with Whitlock calling it a ‘quarterback-killing virus’ that already ruined the careers of Kaepernick, Cam Newton, Robert Griffin III, and Josh Rosen.
Check out the segment above as Whitlock worries that Burrow’s increasing arrogance may have reached fatal levels of toxicity, with Burrow’s passer rating down 23 points from last year and the Bengals just 1-2 on the season.
Here were Whitlock’s original comments on Burrow perhaps becoming the next Kaepernick-type burnout and losing a star-studded career very early on.
“I hope I’m wrong about Joe Burrow… My tweets analogizing Burrow to Josh Rosen and Robert Griffin III were not written with malicious intent, they reflect my gut instincts at the moment. They reflected the reality that sometimes young quarterbacks trip over their own egos and sabotage their career. Joe Burrow has some of the same personality quirks and characteristics of Rosen, Griffin III, Newton, and Kaepernick… Does Joe Burrow have the right attitude? Is Burrow too cocky for his own good? Has he prioritized social justice virtue-signaling above football greatness? Is Joe Burrow suffering from ‘Colin Kaepernick Disease'? The disease killed Josh Rosen in the football womb. The UCLA QB entered the league with the stated goal of being a social justice champion, and complaining about the nine teams that didn’t draft him in the first round. He lasted one season as a starter in Arizona. ‘Kaepernick Disease’ is a deadly form of arrogance, shallowness, narcissism, and wokeness. The disease is triggered when agents, handlers, and media influencers convince young athletes that their mission is to become ‘more than an athlete.’ The disease has been around a little more than a decade. Scientists believe the virus leaked from a laboratory in Portland, Oregon, years ago when Nike executives at the behest of China, developed a formula to make LeBron James the next Mohammad Ali. The leak sparked a pandemic across football and basketball. An early symptom of the disease was a desire to kneel during the National Anthem. New variants of 'Kaepernick Disease' cause athletes to speak out on political issues they know very little about. Joe Burrow recently posted on Instagram about abortion, and about the Supreme Court’s decision to return Roe vs. Wade. In June he urged politicians to get those crazy guns off the street. Back in 2020 during the summer of George Floyd Burrow and his Bengals teammates made a joint statement standing in front of the National Underground Railroad museum. There is no doubt Burrow has at least a mild form of Kap’s Disease. It’s not just the wokeness, it’s the arrogance and flamboyance; those are the other tell-tale signs of Kap Disease. Arrogance and flamboyance destroyed Cam Newton and RG III… Burrow wants to be ‘more than an athlete’, he wants to be a fashionista, he wants to engage in political discussions. He’s distracted and cocky and is headed down the same path of Rosen, Newton, Griffin, and Kaepernick. Joe Burrow should focus solely on football right now. He can be a runway model and uninformed political pundit in his 40s. Now is the time to be a great quarterback.”
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