When Colin Kaepernick was being ignored by the NFL teams, he didn’t have much to say. Now that he’s selling a book, interviews with Kaepernick are popping up everywhere.
We haven’t paid much attention to his various sit-downs and sound bites because, frankly, it’s an old story. The NFL has long since moved on from Kaepernick, freezing him out long enough to make it unrealistic that the now-38-year-old quarterback would have a plausible path to a roster, a practice squad, or even a tryout.
Still, one news item caught our eye in recent weeks. With Kaepernick’s book tour putting him back in the vicinity of the front burner, Giants coach John Harbaugh told Ian O’Connor of The Athletic that Harbaugh wanted to add Kaepernick to the Ravens in 2017.
Through it all, Kaepernick got one workout, five years ago with the Raiders. With the Giants now desperate for quarterback help (and with Jake Haener and Brandon Allen as the most viable options behind new starter Jameis Winston), why not bring Kaepernick in for a look?
Kaepernick continues to say that he’s staying in shape, and that he wants to play. It should be immediately obvious whether he still has the abilities that made Harbaugh interested in him nine years ago.
Harbaugh’s New York staff includes Greg Roman, who was the offensive coordinator during Kaepernick’s first four years in San Francisco. It would be easy, in theory, to configure the offense to fit Kaepernick. If Kaepernick still has the skills he had when he last played.
It starts with a workout (and quite possibly ends with one). There’s no reason not to give it a whirl. The anthem controversy has subsided. (Harbaugh and the Giants surely would want assurances that Kaepernick wouldn’t dust it off, if he ended up on the sideline before games.)
The threshold question is how does Kaepernick look? And there’s only one way to find out. The Giants, who now face not having Jaxson Dart for up to the rest of the season, have plenty of reasons to give Kaepernick a chance to show them what he can do.
It would be different if John Harbaugh hadn’t recently spoken in such glowing terms about Kaepernick. With not many viable options available in free agency — and with Harbaugh having considerable power in New York — let’s see if Harbaugh puts his recent words into current action.
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