Will the 49ers cut Colin Kaepernick? We’ll find out in the coming days after Thursday’s preseason finale against the San Diego Chargers.
Chip Kelly has already called Kaepernick one of the two best quarterbacks on the roster — hardly an achievement. But Jay Glazer reports that Kaepernick’s roster spot is in serious jeopardy.
There’s a strong case for both sides of this argument.
You keep Kaepernick because he hasn’t had a fair shot at knocking off the rust from missing 10 months of football. We still don’t definitively know if he’s better or worse than Blaine Gabbert. The 49ers mismanaged his reps in training camp, giving him arm fatigue, and he missed two critical joint practices against the Texans and Broncos. Also, look at how quarterbacks are dropping around the league — Tony Romo, Teddy Bridgewater. If you do start Gabbert, having a backup quarterback on your roster is quite important. And having a backup that isn’t a sixth-round rookie (Jeff Driskel) or a guy who walked in off the streets two weeks ago (Christian Ponder) is the sign of a competent organization.
You cut Kaepernick, well because … is all of this worth it? If the 49ers are going to go 5-11 either way do they really want to deal with Kaepernick’s political sideshow week after week? Although his protest is peaceful, he’s not only distracting the 49ers locker room, he’s distracting the entire country. It’s hard to spin the latest episode with the pig socks in any positive light. Couple all of this with the fact that he’s clearly regressed as a quarterback and it’s tough to justify a 53-man roster spot. Kap’s just not the same jacked physical specimen or playmaker that made him so special three years ago. How will he be able to fix all of his issues from the pocket with a snap of a finger? He won’t.
But why GM Trent Baalke might go ahead and just outright cut Kaepernick actually has to do with 2017.
If Kaepernick plays this season and suffers a significant injury, the 49ers will be financially liable. If Kaepernick can’t pass a physical on April 1, 2017, he’ll be automatically owed $14.5 million even if they cut him the next day. That’s a hefty chunk of change, regardless if the 49ers have $48.4 million in cap space. Given his injury history and his penchant to elect for surgeries, this scenario has to be an every day nightmare for Baalke.
The Redskins found themselves in this exact same scenario in 2015. Robert Griffin III took all the first-team reps in training camp, started the preseason, and then suffered a concussion. Partially out of the fear of paying an injured Griffin, Washington elected to start Kirk Cousins instead. They demoted Griffin to third-string and kept him inactive on the sidelines for nearly the entire season.
All signs are pointing to Kelly and Baalke not being on the same page in regards to Kaepernick. Their pissing match bled into a Tuesday press conference (details here). Baalke decides the 53-man roster; Kelly decides which 46 players are active on game day. Kelly clearly seems to have a soft spot for the embattled quarterback and reports from last year indicated he inquired about a trade for Kap.
If Baalke decides to keep Kaepernick on the 53-man roster, there’s no telling when Kelly will get the itch to send Gabbert to the bench. So if Baalke is that fearful of the injury scenario playing out, he might have to play bad cop and cut Kaepernick by Saturday.
For now, we wait.