Ex-49ers QB Colin Kaepernick impressed at Atlanta workout, but likely angered NFL by changing venues
By MICHAEL NOWELS | mnowels@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group PUBLISHED: November 24, 2019 at 10:36 am | UPDATED: November 25, 2019 at 4:04 am (eastbaytimes.com)
Colin Kaepernick has been waiting by the phone for a week, but it’s all been in vain.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, no NFL team has called Kaepernick in the week since he participated in a workout intended to draw interest from teams and end his three-year exile from the league.
Of course, the lack of interest may have little to do with how the former 49ers star looked on the field in Atlanta. Kaepernick and his representatives pulled out of the NFL-organized workout just a few hours before its start, opting to set up their own workout in the Atlanta area and invite teams and media to attend. They cited the NFL’s insistence Kaepernick sign an unusual waiver, plus the fact that media weren’t invited to the league-planned workout, as reasons for the switch-up that left teams scrambling to attend.
The NFL is a league more insistent on dictating terms than any other, and its teams largely take on that same mentality. Kaepernick doesn’t appear to be interested in leaving behind his penchant for challenging authority, making for a difficult marriage between him and any NFL team.
“I’ve been ready for three years. I’ve been denied for three years,” Kaepernick said after his workout last Saturday, imploring the NFL and its teams to “stop running.”
The Niners attended Kaepernick’s workout along with six other teams, and the 25 teams that didn’t see it in person received video of the event.
The fact that no team has reached out showing interest underlines just how bleak the odds are Kaepernick will be signed, Schefter says.
