Colin Kaepernick will not likely be back with the San Francisco 49ers in 2016, according to Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports.
As we’ve been saying for a while now, the 49ers have come to the conclusion that Kaepernick won’t develop into the franchise passer the team needs and doesn’t intend on bringing him back next season. Thankfully for the team, his contract is such that if he is not on the roster on April 1, 2016, Kaepernick won’t receive another dime from the 49ers.
La Canfora reports that Kaepernick’s benching has frayed relations on both sides to the point where it has “created a climate in which it is virtually certain he is not back in San Francisco in 2016, according to team and league sources.”
Kaepernick wasn’t happy with the team’s decision to bench him, obviously. However, he’s not held back his feelings on the matter in the media and has even gone so far as to publicly fire back and head coach Jim Tomsula and offensive coordinator Geep Chryst after both made comments about his play he didn’t appreciate.
After Tomsula said Kaepernick needed to “step back and breathe,” the quarterback told reporters, “I’m not out of breath, so I don’t understand that reference.
Chryst mentioned he thought Kaepernick was playing too cautiously after he threw four interceptions against the Cardinals, to which the quarterback responded: “I don’t believe that’s accurate. Every time I step on the field, I step on the field to make plays, so that’s just a matter of opinion.”
Needless to say, the friction between Kap, the coaches and the front office has reached a point where there is likely no coming back. As La Canfora puts it, trust has eroded “to the point where any cosmetic attempts to rebuild bridges are essentially a lost cause, and the prospect of Kaepernick actually playing there next season are viewed as a non-starter.”
Another nugget from La Canfora’s report is that “several teams” were inquiring about the quarterback before the trade deadline. Obviously nothing came out of those inquiries, but it definitely shows many teams still view Kaepernick as a player worth developing.
That remains to be seen. Since leading the 49ers to the Super Bowl, he’s been on a gradual decline. That said, so has the entire organization.
Perhaps a new environment and a second chance is exactly what Kaepernick needs make a full comeback. At this point, things can’t get much lower than they currently are in San Francisco for the embattled signal-caller.