Kaepernick sits out the anthem

True, but NFL teams have the plausible excuse, "he hasn't played in two years," to support their peer-group reluctance to sign him.

It's certainly far more possible Kaepernick could walk into a CFL camp and in short order establish himself as a legitimate starting prospect.

Certainly I figure he'd wait a few weeks to see if any NFL teams would take a shot first, but if it gets to be late April and nothing's cooking, the CFL might make sense.

 

Once he signs a CFL contract, that's all the excuse, a legal one, too, for no NFL team to offer him a contract until next year, when the excuse will be "he's too old for us."

 

Of course. But under the logic that Kaepernick has lost game conditioning, field awareness, etc etc. in being out of competition for two years, I doubt any NFL team, no matter what their roster situation might be, would add him midseason.

If anybody is going to sign him, logically it would be right now (or soon), so he could have the whole offseason, OTAs, etc etc. But I doubt that's very likely in any case.

The one possible road back to the NFL I could see for him would be to play in a spring/summer league (in this case, the CFL), get back into regular action, tear it up, and then be available for possible NFL interest next offseason.

Of course if he goes to the CFL (or AAF) and flops, it's all over anyway. Either way he has his settlement.

 

This season Washington signed and started a QB who hadn't thrown a pass in seven years.

That was after they already signed Mark Sanchez... whose last game in the NFL came on the same day as Kaepernick's last game.

 

Right, but those guys hadn't spent the last two years in legal battles based on the premise there was an informal agreement among owners to keep them out of the league.

 

That is an incentive for some NFL team to sign him as a signal that agreement no longer exists/never existed. I understand no franchise would be eager to bell that particular cat, but if on-field product means anything anymore, then a bunch of them are in no risk, potential high reward scenarios with a Kaepernick signing.

 

I think using Josh Johnson as an example (he hadn't thrown a pass in seven years!) is at least a little spurious. The guy had been in training camp every year except 2018 (and he'd been in minicamp with the Raiders in 2018). Isn't Johnson really just a career third-stringer that kept in shape, went about his business professionally in practices and finally got a chance? How's he different than someone like Babe Laufenberg?

Sanchez and Peterman are far better examples.

 

He never sets foot on an NFL field again.

 

Especially Peterman.

 

And if he does he should play for free.

 

There are probably thousands of Josh Johnsosn in the world, but I'm confident in saying there's only one Babe Laufenberg.