Unfortunately easier if you have black head coach

I have to believe that there's a lot of pressure from players and from the outside to sign Kaepernick. There's also a widespread belief that he was better than a number of other QBs when he was cut by the 49ers and that his protests made him unpalatable to a number of teams. It will be hard for him to regain his skills quickly after being away from the game for several years. As others have noted, not playing him or releasing him would appear to many as a continuation of the NFL blackball; and as unfair as it would be to the coach, having a black coach make that decision would lend more credence to the decision.

As a side note, CK's decreasing level of performance was probably due to the league starting to catch up to the read option play, moving Kaepernick to more of a pocket passer, and a sharp decline in the 49ers overall talent. From what I remember CK was not a divisive figure in the locker room. It's unclear to me whether the 49ers decided not to give him a big second contract, whether they knew they were in a rebuild mode, or whether they judged that he was an Andy Dalton-like skill level and wanted to move on.

It's not clear whether other teams passed on CK due to wide differences in salary expectation or wanting to use him as a backup. Given the controversy this has caused, I would have expected that any offers CK rejected would have been leaked.

An unfortunate truth in life, beyond FB and race, is that one can get away with certain behavious if you're good enough - but you can't if you just so so.

ND 27 Nevada Reno 0