(Yahoo article on Kaepernick waiver)
Not that this should come as a surprise to anyone.
Thanks for posting this. My initial read was from an early report saying the waiver wasn't much different than any others. Obviously that reporter wasn't reading the finer print.
I still question his approach, some decisions he made, but maybe Colin did have a point when he told the scouts that coaches and execs had nothing to fear by signing him. As I noted before, if you look at his Twitter account or anything he's said in the last two years, it's fairly tame.
I don't recall anything with Baltimore, but I remember the situation with Denver all too well... John Elway said...
Don't believe that for a second. The only contract he offered was when Colin was still on the 49ers and a trade was being discussed. Denver wanted him to take a pay cut of about $5m-$9m
per year (about $12-16m, down to $7m), an astounding amount. Kaepernick was willing to take a pay cut, even flying to Denver and meeting with team management, just not that much. Denver simply wouldn't budge in negotiating, knowing the contract bordered on absurd, and Elway is in a sense trying to wash their hands of it.
One may think Elway knew SF would jettison Kaepernick and used that as leverage, but there's no way he could have known that, as it happened sometime later, after Shanahan was brought on as SF coach and ultimately made the call to cut Kaepernick.
https://ftw.usatoday.com/2018/08/nfl-broncos-john-elway-colin-kaepernick-contract-collusion-case
Let's take a look at every Denver QB who was named a starter, since that time, and just after Manning retired:
Trevor Siemian,
Paxton Lynch,
Brock Osweiller,
Case Keenum,
Joe Flacco,
Brandon Allen.
Can anyone really say that during this period of time, Kaepernick would have been worse than all of those guys? Any of them? My honest answer is no. Flacco 2010-2012 was better (beat Colin in the SB!), but not since. Keenum had some good years, some average. I'd expect that level of quality from Kaep probably. The rest were all below average. Even if you take into consideration the two things I think make Kaep a hard QB to keep as a starter (concern about distraction/negative feedback), and his not looking well through progressions and not moving well at all in a pocket, he's still a much better QB option than most of those guys. This doesn't even consider the guys who mostly sat on the bench, but did play some, during this time:
Chad Kelly
Kevin Hogan
Garrett Grayson
Nick Stevens
Kyle Sloter
Mark Sanchez
Austin Davis
Brett Rypien
So yes, he's controversial. Yes, he'd likely be a bit of a distraction. But I'd argue less than Michael Vick was. I'd also argue while he's made some questionable decisions, ones that give me pause, he really isn't a jerk, and really isn't that
hated of a player. Would fans dislike him any less than, say, Kareem Hunt? Blake Bortals? Mitch Trubisky? Jameis Winston? Jalen Ramsey? Ndamukong Suh? Vontez Burfict? Heck, there's a lot of football fans that despise Tom Brady, Kirk Cousins, even Baker Mayfield.