Colin Kaepernick still is a free agent, and Richard Sherman has a pretty good idea why that’s the case.
The Seattle Seahawks cornerback used to be rivals with Kaepernick when he was quarterbacking the San Francisco 49ers to back to back NFC title games, but times have changed since then. In the 2016 season, Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem, and the uproar that ensued still hasn’t subsided.
So does that have anything to do with why the quarterback still is a free agent?
“I’m sure he is (being blackballed by NFL teams),” Sherman said Friday on ESPN’s “First Take.” “It’s difficult to see because he’s played at such a high level, and you see guys, quarterbacks, who have never played at a high level being signed by teams. So it’s difficult to understand. Obviously, he’s going to be in a backup role at this point. But you see quarterbacks, there was a year Matt Schaub had a pretty rough year and got signed the next year. So it has nothing to do with football. You can see that. They signed guys who have had off years before.”
Sherman added: “You don’t have 32 starting-level quarterbacks in this league. You have about eight elites, and then you have the rest of the league. You have about eight, nine elite quarterbacks. You have two or three who have the potential to be elite. And then you have the rest of the teams. So he could play and start on a ton of teams in this league. He would be a starter on probably 20 of the teams in this league. But you’re telling me that you’re going to let other guys, you’re going to pick up some of these other guys and tell me that they’re starters?”
The counterargument you’ll hear is that Kaepernick is 3-16 over the past two seasons, but he’s also been to a Super Bowl and was one win shy of making another, due in large part to Sherman.
Thumbnail photo via Joe Nicholson/USA TODAY Sports Images
