Jim Harbaugh is back in the NFL. That means many things.
It could also mean this: Colin Kaepernick could be back in the NFL, too.
Harbaugh drafted Kaepernick in 2011. Kaepernick became a star with Harbaugh as his coach. During the early days of Kaepernick’s collusion-fueled exile from the NFL, Harbaugh appeared on PFT Live and vowed that Kaepernick could deliver championships — plural — to an NFL team.
Two years ago, Harbaugh (as PFT reported) was considering the possibility of bringing Kaepernick to Minnesota as the quarterbacks coach, if Harbaugh had been hired. It’s unknown whether Kaepernick, now 36, would have been (or now would be) willing to do that.
Also in 2022, Harbaugh gave Kaepernick a chance to showcase his talents at halftime of the Michigan spring game.
At last check, Kaepernick still wanted to play. But he still can’t get a sniff in the NFL. The shunning continued even during a season that saw far more quarterback injuries than usual, with the Browns starting five different quarterbacks during the course of the season and the Vikings using four.
Regardless, the one coach who had zero qualms about Kaepernick is back in the NFL. The one coach with a five-year contract and plenty of equity could risk some of it in an effort to right a seven-year wrong.
