If Colin Kaepernick is really getting the kind of interest previous reports claimed he is, the teams who have been thinking about signing him reportedly haven’t reached out to any of his people. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported on Friday that his sources told him that no team has offered the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback a tryout. In fact, the analyst said no one has even reached out to Kaepernick to gauge interest or any of the other things they might do if they were really interested in signing him.
Florio said it’s possible that teams are as interested as rumors said they were, as those previous reports noted the supposed caveat in that interest, which is that the coronavirus has made it harder for teams to hold tryouts and workouts. The situation has resulted in Cam Newton and Jadeveon Clowney still being free agents. Since Kaepernick has been out of the league since 2016, it was never assumed a team would sign him to a contract sight-unseen.
The analyst believes there’s a chance a team does want to get a look at Kaepernick, but they aren’t setting anything up until closer to fall camp’s start. Florio also thinks if there was real interest, it could fade before the NFL’s preseason kicks off.
Kaepernick hasn’t set foot in a game since 2016, when he began kneeling during the national anthem. The quarterback made it clear that the kneeling was protesting police brutality and racial injustice, but his critics cast the demonstrations as disrespectful to the American flag. This summer, amid the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter rallies, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell released a video apologizing for not listening to Kaepernick and those who joined in his protests.
Some in the league believed the video set the stage for Kaepernick’s return. Florio believes the momentum for the moment could fade if the protests die down and the focus moves off the former 49er again.
Florio added that it’s also possible there was never really any interest in signing the quarterback to begin with. He pointed out that there’s quite a bit of difference between expressing interest to a reporter who is asking about it in the heat of the moment and expressing interest to the player himself. So far, Kaepernick’s camp told the analyst their phone hasn’t rung. Florio added that if a call eventually comes, it would be quite interesting to see what happens next.
