After a report emerged on Saturday that the Houston Texans and Cleveland Browns would have interest in trading for San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, word is coming out of both organizations that throws cold water on those potential developments.
The initial report came by way of NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, who also stressed that San Francisco does not want to see Kaepernick leave.
John McClain of the Houston Chronicle was the first two refute that claim on Sunday morning when he tweeted: “By the way, the Texans have no interest in trading for Colin Kaepernick.”
Not long afterwards, Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com made a similar statement regarding the Browns, writing “The Browns are not interested in trading for 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick despite an NFL Network [report] that they are.”
All the talk of trading Kaepernick was started when his agents reportedly asked the 49ers for permission to seek a trade. It’s worth pointing out that the 49ers have made it clear — both before the rumored request and afterwards — that Kaepernick is a player they would like to keep and utilize in Chip Kelly’s zone-read offense.
This is just the beginning of “lying season” in the NFL, folks.
Agents and teams will be feeding the media all sorts of information and misinformation the next couple of months as the new league year ushers in free agency and the 2016 NFL Draft.
Everyone is trying to get an edge any way they can, which leads to contradictory reports on top of contradictory reports.
The one thing you can take to the bank, however, is that Kaepernick isn’t happy with the 49ers these days. We’ll see if the two sides can smooth things over in the coming weeks or if he ends up moving on to what he feels would be greener pastures soon enough.