Colin Kaepernick last started an NFL game three years, five months and seven days ago.
In that time, the following quarterbacks have started football games: Derek Anderson, Luke Falk, Sean Mannion, Logan Thomas, Tanner Gentry, Colt McCoy, Landry Jones, Taylor Heinecke, Nathan Peterman, Bryce Petty, Matt Barkley, Mark Sanchez, EJ Manuel, Ryan Finley, Cody Kessler, Paxton Lynch, Jeff Driskel, David Blough, Mike Glennon, Kevin Hogan, C.J. Beathard, Tom Savage, Brett Hundley, Develin Hodges, DeShone Kizer, Trevon Siemian, Mitchell Trubisky.
These aren’t all the terrible, or at the very least, sub-par quarterbacks to have taken snaps since Kaepernick has been discernibly blocked from job opportunities by the NFL after kneeling during the nation anthem as a protest against policy brutality, but most of those aforementioned names are not NFL-caliber starting quarterbacks. Wherever you rank Kaepernick, he’s on the abbreviated list of starting-caliber QBs, and still only 32 years old.
Not a single one of those aforementioned players are capable of propelling a team to the playoffs. Kaepernick propelled his team not just to the playoffs, but a Super Bowl, and there’s reason to believe he can again.
According to TMZ, Kaepernick is still working out and remaining in NFL shape for if/when he gets his chance.
Per The Washington Post’s Mark Maske, there are “increased hopes” a team could sign him. The league also won’t be pursuing anything like the same nonsense it went through with last year.
The league is not likely to do anything like last year's failed workout negotiations to try to have Colin Kaepernick signed by a team, a source said. But there are increased hopes by some in and around the NFL that circumstances are more favorable for a team to sign Kaepernick.
— MarkMaske (@MarkMaske) June 6, 2020
As you may recall, last year, Kaepernick was “given” that infamous workout opportunity by the NFL. It was nothing short of a sham, in which the NFL, on five days notice, decided to set up a workout for Kaepernick on a Saturday, in the midst of college football season, and gave Kaepernick two hours to accept the offer.
Most teams weren’t able to send representatives on a Saturday on short notice, again, in the midst of college football season and the day before most teams played on Sunday, but the NFL promised all 32 teams would be there, in Atlanta for the workout. The NFL reportedly sent an unusual waiver form to Kaepernick and was to keep full propriety over the film of the workout.
Kaepernick and his team asked for the workout to be moved to a Tuesday, which was rejected. As the entire scheme began to unravel, Kaepernick announced 20 minutes before the workout was scheduled to begin that he’d be moving the workout to a high school field about an hour away. Eight team representatives attended, along with reporters.
Per The Ringer:
“On Friday, league officials reportedly told Kaepernick’s inner circle they would not be allowed to film the session. Only the Atlanta Falcons staff would be allowed to film, and they would distribute tape to the 32 teams. Kaepernick and his advisers were concerned the league could edit the footage to highlight his worst throws.”
It had all the trappings and pungency of a PR stunt.
But, even in that bizarre environment, Kaepernick got in a public workout and very much looked like a man who could still throw a football. Polish lacking? Sure, but the arm talent was evident.
If Kaepernick is given a chance in the NFL, which, for the first time in three-plus years, seems possible given Roger Goodell’s acknowledgment of the NFL’s racial insensitivity and the remaining furor that Kaepernick doesn’t have a job, he would be allowed to kneel without fear of direct punishment from the NFL, though questions remain about team owners like Jerry Jones, who are notoriously anti-kneeling.