Would Al Davis have signed Colin Kaepernick?
We know he liked Kaepernick, but how much? A story circulated a few years ago that Davis wanted to trade up and draft Kaepernick in 2011. That story, according to former Raiders voice Greg Papa, was fabricated a little by Hue Jackson, who coached the team at the time.
“Hue Jackson has this talking point out there that Al [Davis] would have drafted Kaepernick and the Niners traded up,” Greg Papa said back in 2017 on his 95.7 The Game radio show. “That is simply not true. He would not have done that. He likes Kaepernick, but later in the draft, like in the fourth round. He wanted a big offensive lineman, Orlando Franklin… Al just got Jason Campbell here, he was not going to bring in a rookie quarterback.”
Though it’s irrelevant to Kaepernick’s status in the league now, the idea that the Raiders wanted him badly in 2011 apparently wasn’t the case. It sounds like maybe just Hue Jackson wanted Kaepernick badly in 2011.
Certainly if Davis was still around, he wouldn’t have considered the current political climate in making a decision on Kaepernick. If anything, he preferred to do the opposite of what the rest of league was doing, anyway.
On paper, the Kaepernick to Oakland idea sounds like a good one, but there’s also the risk of fans begging for Kaepernick after any and every mistake made by Derek Carr. It’s already coming from one media personality and it’s fair to wonder if the infatuation with Kaepernick has as much to do with football as it does his activism off the field (or in this case on the field, too). Kaepernick would be an upgrade over a number of NFL backups, but some seem to have forgotten his career wasn’t on the upswing when we last saw him – he had just lost his job to Blaine Gabbert.
He would beat out Derek Carr in 45 seconds. https://t.co/x8xxgQsyli
— mike freeman (@mikefreemanNFL) September 20, 2018
If tweets like the one above were to become commonplace (and show up among fans on Sunday afternoons), then maybe the Raiders would be wise to pass on Kaepernick – which is a shame, because he would be a good backup.
twitter: @raidersbeat
Kap isn’t playing in the NFL due to his ability and lack of leadership. He wasn’t an accurate thrower which always catches up to QB in the NFL. More importantly, he lost that 49er locker room. People seem to forget that. If you cannot lead as a QB you cannot be an NFL QB. Those are the biggest reasons Kap is still out of the NFL.