There have been rumblings all offseason about Colin Kaepernick not being committed enough to his football career, and those concerns apparently still exist for some NFL coaches and executives.
ESPN’s Mike Sando recently conducted his fourth annual QB Tiers survey, which asked 50 NFL coaches and execs to sort 36 quarterbacks into five tiers. One of Sando’s takeaways regarding Kaepernick is that the 29-year-old’s passion for football is still being questioned.
“Everyone else is worried about him working, but I never hear him say how much he wants to work,” one voter said. “That hits a chord. People want to hear, ‘I want to work in the league, I want to work for you, I want to do this more than anything.’ It’s like with Tim Tebow — he’d rather be on the outside switching sports than be relegated to the [third team] and getting 20 percent of the reps.”
For what it’s worth, Kaepernick came in at 29th overall with an average of 3.88 for his tier. When the survey was conducted a year ago (before Kaepernick made his first national anthem protest), the results were almost identical. The free agent ranked 28th overall then with an average tier of 3.83.
Kaepernick worked out for the Seattle Seahawks earlier this offseason, and they came away feeling there is no question he is still committed to football. With all the talk about NFL teams blackballing Kaepernick, it’s possible the “passion for the game” argument is just a way for teams to justify ignoring him.
If you want to know the real reason Kaepernick has not been signed, some comments John Elway made recently sum it up pretty well. Teams would be willing to deal with a potential distraction if they thought Kaepernick would help them win games. No matter how you look at it, his lack of a contract offer has to do with both skillset and political views.
