Football Season Can Finally Begin Now That We're Getting Our First 'Give Colin Kaepernick a Chance' Talk of 2026
I should've seen this coming.
Not the injury to Jaxson Dart, which was awful. As much as I hate the Giants like I hate hemorrhoids, I have to admit the world is a more interesting place when they have a promising quarterback under center. No one could've predicted he'd be knocked out for the season. And pro sports will be poorer in his absence.
What I'm kicking myself over is that I missed out on this. The reaction to Jaxson Dart going down. I pride myself on being good at pattern recognition. At being able to predict human behavior, both public and private. From being able to sense when the driver to my right is about to cut in front of me all the way to the left, to knowing who in line in front of me won't be ready to order when they get to the counter to knowing which guy in my foursome is going to show up late and make us miss our tee time. So there's no excuse for not guessing this would happen:
Source - When Colin Kaepernick was being ignored by the NFL teams, he didn’t have much to say. Now that he’s selling a book, interviews with Kaepernick are popping up everywhere.
We haven’t paid much attention to his various sit-downs and sound bites because, frankly, it’s an old story. ...
Still, one news item caught our eye in recent weeks. With Kaepernick’s book tour putting him back in the vicinity of the front burner, Giants coach John Harbaugh told Ian O’Connor of The Athletic that Harbaugh wanted to add Kaepernick to the Ravens in 2017.
Through it all, Kaepernick got one workout, five years ago with the Raiders. With the Giants now desperate for quarterback help (and with Jake Haener and Brandon Allen as the most viable options behind new starter Jameis Winston), why not bring Kaepernick in for a look?
Shame on me. I was naive to assume Kaepernick's name wasn't about to come up. After all, if ever there was a pattern of human behavior, this is it. Every time a quarterback gets injured, tweaks a hammy or is seen in public blowing his nose, somewhere, somebody is declaring this is his opportunity to get back in the game. Whether it's this post from 2023:
Or this one from the year before:
There was a concept back in the old days when newspapers were printed using typesetting and rotary presses known as "a standing headline." Meaning one that the printers knew they were going to use time and time again, so they kept it handy. "War Breaks Out in Middle East." "President Vows to Reduce Dependency on Foreign Oil." "Congressman Denies Involvement in Sex Scandal," and so on. But not one of them ever got recycled as much as "QB Injury Opens Door for Kaepernick's Return."
Believe me, I have zero interest in re-litigating his story. It was the most dreary sports debate of all time. And brought out the worst in everyone on both sides of the discussion. None of that has changed over the years.
What has changed is everyone in the conversation. Meaning we all got older. By a fucking decade. Kaepernick is 38. He took his last snap in 2016. He was 1-10 as a starter. He was 17th in passer rating, and 23rd in QBR. Not terrible by any means. But that was also four seasons removed from the Super Bowl season none of his supports can ever stop talking about. And he was a starter for just five seasons. Meaning he's been out of football for twice as long as he ever spent leading a huddle.
And yet, this conversation will just go on and on. Seemingly forever. Someday, quarterbacks yet unborn will tear their MCLs, Kapernick will be in a walker with tennis balls on the bottom, grabbing the Early Bird at the Cracker Barrel, and we're going to be hearing about how his chance to return is finally here.
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Do I think he was blacklisted from the NFL for having the temerity to not stand proudly for "The Star Spangled Banner" by a conspiracy of coaches so bursting with patriotic fever that they shed a tear every time they hear Francis Scott Key's words of nationalistic pride and liberty? Maybe some felt like that.
But the one thing I truly believe about football coaches is that, above all other things, they're driven to win. That they'd put the Ayatollah under center if they thought he could complete a Flood concept throw out of Dash Pass protection like Josh Allen does. That they'd grind their grandmother up into Soylent Green and feed the old gal to their Front-7 if they thought it might give his rushers a half-step advantage on a Fire Zone blitz.
The whole history of football, college and pro, is replete with examples of terrible people who were really useful when it came to winning games. No one's accusing Kaepernick of being a bad human being. And as a free American, he's entitled to his opinions. The issue is that he was just not a particularly good quarterback. If he'd been a Pro Bowler, he wouldn't have been released in the first place. And someone would've signed him in the 10 years of opportunity they've had. And it's preposterous to think that he "deserves" his shot over the 32-plus backups currently on rosters and the 32 or so guys on practice squads. Or any of the QBs who spent time on training camp rosters, but didn't quite make the cut.
But none of that matters. Logic doesn't apply here. It's all just about finding a way to bring this tedious topic up again, and keep it going in perpetuity. We'll revisit this again next September when somebody else goes down. And for the rest of our lives. Yay, sports!