If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the ongoing situation between the San Francisco 49ers and quarterback Colin Kaepernick, it’s that nobody has any idea what really happening.
Reports surfaced recently saying Kaepernick’s agents had requested San Francisco trade their client. Though the 49ers front office intimated that the relationship between player and team is a good one, there still hasn’t been any confirmation that Kaepernick’s trade request was received. Over the weekend, NFL Network was reporting the Cleveland Browns might be interested in trading for the San Francisco QB.
While the situation in California remains muddied, the latest update to this story claims Kaepernick won’t be heading to Northeast Ohio anytime soon.
Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting the Browns have no interest in trading for Kaepernick despite recent rumors. While there’s still time for this story to take another turn, I personally hope this report is true and Cleveland is showing no desire to make a deal for Kaepernick. Trading for him certainly appears to involve much more risk than reward.
I completely understand why some Browns fans would want to go after a quarterback who helped lead his team to the Super Bowl a couple years ago. A franchise which has failed to find an answer at QB for decades now should definitely leave no stone unturned.
At the same time, a trade for Kaepernick has lost a lot of appeal over the past few seasons.
Despite becoming one of the league’s hottest players during the 2012 season, Kaepernick has progressively gotten worse. His year-over-year passer rating has dropped almost 20 full points since his breakout campaign, and his yards per pass attempt has gone from a career high 8.32 in 2012 to a career low 6.62 last season.
Speaking of last season, I’m not quite sure how it could’ve gone any worse for Kaepernick. He overall appeared to have lost the confidence which had him taking the league by storm just a couple years back, and his long-range throws were so off target it seemed the coaching staff began designing short-pass offensive schemes just to avoid him throwing anything deep.
Nine games into the season, Kaepernick was benched for Blaine Gabbert, a player seen almost universally as one of the biggest QB busts in recent history.
After all that, it’s relatively difficult for me to see why the Browns would be interested in trading for Kaepernick. Sure, I’d be completely behind it had this rumor surfaced two years ago. Now, though, Kaepernick just doesn’t look like the same player.
Additionally, if Cleveland was wanting to make a move to get Kaepernick, the team would also be on the hook for his $11.9 million salary for 2016. Based on how last year went, paying that much for a quarterback trending in the wrong direction doesn’t seem like a smart move at all.
Of course, long-suffering Browns fans could try to the make the argument that Kaepernick is still better than what the team currently has. In a sense, this is partially correct. After Johnny Manziel is released next week, Cleveland will only have Josh McCown, Austin Davis and Connor Shaw in its QB room.
However, despite this not being the most promising group of quarterbacks, would Kaepernick really be that much of an improvement? Yes, you could always leave room for the chance he rebounds in a new setting. At the same time, if this didn’t occur, it would only set the Browns back even further.
The fact is Cleveland really isn’t a position of needing to win now, therefore it doesn’t really need to swing for the fences to try and bring in Kaepernick. All signs point to the team drafting a quarterback high and grooming him while another rebuild gets off the ground.
If the reports are true and the Browns really aren’t interested in trading for Kaepernick, it only confirms the aforementioned strategy remains the same. At the end of the day, Cleveland is right to back out of the Kaepernick sweepstakes, especially considering the fact the team would have to give up an asset or two in a move which would have a very high chance of backfiring.
