Polarizing former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick won’t be on the sidelines this year — at least not for the Los Angeles Chargers.
The Chargers, under coach Jim Harbaugh, had probably represented Kaepernick’s best chance to return to the league, if as a coach rather than a player.
But speaking after practice on Thursday, Harbaugh said that wasn’t going to happen.
“I love Colin, but he’s not going to be on the coaching staff, which is set for this year. And he’s not going to be playing on the roster either,” Harbaugh said, according to ESPN.
Kaepernick has been out of the league since the end of the 2016 season, meaning he hasn’t played a snap since Jan. 1, 2017.
Those seven years are already longer than the six years he played as a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, and since then, he’s become better known as a richly remunerated Nike figurehead than an on-field team leader.
It’s not likely any NFL team is willing to invest money in a 36-year-old has-been, particularly a 36-year-old has-been whose practice of kneeling for the national anthem ignited a national controversy that turned off many NFL fans.
Harbaugh was the coach of the 49ers for part of Kaepernick’s tenure with the team, including the 49ers Super Bowl game in February 2013 (the team lost to the Baltimore Ravens).
He was gone from the team by the time Kaepernick’s anthem protests kicked in, but he has apparently remained a fan.
Will Colin Kaepernick ever be on an NFL sideline as a coach?
In an interview with USA Today last week, Harbaugh hinted that Kaepernick could join his team as a quarterbacks coach.
He said he’d spoken to Kaepernick about the possibility in January.
“He’s considering it,” Harbaugh told USA Today. “He was out of the country. He said he was going to get back to me. We haven’t reconnected since then. That was early, early in the year.”
On Thursday, Harbaugh cited former Raiders owner Al Davis as a reason he was looking at Kaepernick for a coaching position — someday.
“Al Davis saw something in me that made him think I would be a good coach, and I see those same qualities in Colin,” he told ESPN, “if it is something he chooses.”
Kaepernick’s relationship with the NFL is one of the stranger stories in American sports.
Since leaving the 49ers, he has remained a presence — haunting the league’s periphery like a witch not invited to the royal christening.
He’s compared the NFL draft to a slave auction. That implies the league is akin to an antebellum Southern plantation — but Kaepernick wants nothing more than to get back to being a field hand, taking orders from an overseer wearing a Sony headset.
Kaepernick is apparently still dreaming of the day he’ll be on an NFL field again.
In Paris for the Summer Olympics, he told the British news outlet Sky News that he could be an asset to a team that hires him.
“I mean, it’s something I’ve trained my whole life for, so being able to step back on that field, I think that would be a major moment, a major accomplishment for me,” Kaepernick said. “Also, I think it’s something that I could bring a lot to a team and help them win a championship.”
It’s not going to be this year — at least not for the Los Angeles Chargers. And if it’s not for the Chargers, it’s not likely to be for anyone.
