One is a hero, the other a pariah. One will most likely be rewarded with a fat contract, the other will keep looking for a job that probably isn’t going to be offered.
Over their last 5 games, they had similar stats
Hero: completion % 67.4 yards 1,565 TD 7 INT 5 pass rating 96.2
Pariah: completion % 65.1 yards 1,305 TD 9 INT 2 pass rating 96.2
Of course one of these people is Colin Kaepernick and the other one is Jimmy Garopollo. The 49’ers looked inept before Garopollo stepped in and became a hero in San Francisco, leading the team on a 5 game winning streak. That winning streak looks to have convinced 49’ers GM John Lynch to lay out a very substantial amount to retain Garopollo’s services.
Whilst it should also be noted in the final 6 games both of these players took snaps in Garopollo went 5-1; whereas Kaepernick went 1-5. For me, the polarization in the record isn’t enough to justify why the former 49’er hasn’t even offered a chance on a team. The Dolphins pretty much damn well dragged Jay Cutler out of retirement rather than try out an active free agent. The Texans went 1-8 after Watson went down; do they seriously expect us to believe that Kaepernick wouldn’t have offered any better than the awful quarterbacking we saw from Houston last year?
I honestly fail to see how teams will be able to justify why they wouldn’t call Kaepernick in a season where plenty of teams could have benefited from his ability. I’m not at all saying Kaepernick should be considered a top 15 Quarterback but the fact that he wasn’t even looked at stinks of a player being blackballed. How does an owner even begin to justify to a fan base that they tanked the season rather than employ Colin Kaepernick?