‘Kap is ready!!’: Colin Kaepernick trains with Tyler Lockett. Seahawks to give him a shot?
Colin Kaepernick worked out with Tyler Lockett.
Will he get a tryout with Lockett’s team?
For the first time in 10 years Lockett’s Seahawks need a new quarterback. Is the former Super Bowl passer/runner for the San Francisco 49ers an option?
At this point, what would Seattle lose by finding out?
Kaepernick has been blackballed from the NFL the last five years after his kneeling during the national anthem at games to protest police brutality and social justice. Monday, in a creative use of social media, Kaepernick took Lockett up on his offer on Twitter from this past weekend and worked out with Seattle’s record-setting wide receiver.
They caught and threw on what appeared to be a high school field perhaps in Arizona, where Kaepernick was through this past weekend.
Lockett thinks Kaepernick should be playing, for somebody.
“Yessir!! That man Kap is ready!!” Lockett posted on his Twitter account following their workout.
Kaepernick posted video of some of the training with Lockett on his Instagram account.
“Great work today @tdlockett12 It felt great being out there with you. Thanks for everyone who tapped in via stream with us,” Kaepernick wrote on Twitter Monday. “The full video of the workout will be posted (Tuesday).”
The Seahawks are in situation they haven’t had in a decade, since they drafted Russell Wilson and made him their starter over rich free-agent import Matt Flynn before the 2012 season.
They need a new quarterback.
At 34, Kaepernick is one year older than Wilson.
The Seahawks have been exploring what it might take to trade with Houston for Texans three-time Pro Bowl quarterback Deshaun Watson. He is facing civil lawsuits from 22 women for alleged sexual misconduct in Texas.
His team reportedly has been seeking three first-round draft choices for Watson, who was a healthy inactive while getting paid last season. Watson has a no-trade clause, so, like a free agent, he can pick where he goes.
Watson per multiple reports was meeting Monday night about a possible trade to the Carolina Panthers, whose home is near where Watson starred collegiately at Clemson, and the New Orleans Saints.
ESPN’s Dianna Russini reported Monday the Seahawks “do not have any plans to meet with Deshaun Watson as of now.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean the Seahawks are not pursuing him, just not meeting in person with him.
League sources have told The News Tribune that Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider have been weighing what it might take to trade for Watson to replace Wilson as Seattle’s starter.
Watson and Kaepernick were the “name” options in The News Tribune reader poll Monday on who should be the Seahawks’ new quarterback.
So was Drew Lock.
The Seahawks acquired Lock among three players, two first-round draft choices and five draft picks overall in the team’s mammoth trade of Wilson to Denver last week.
League sources have told the TNT that Carroll and Schneider really liked the 6-foot-4 Lock and his natural throwing skills when he was coming out of Missouri for the 2019 NFL draft. But weeks before that year’s draft Seattle had signed Wilson to a then-league record $140 million contract extension. So the Seahawks didn’t need or draft a QB.
Denver drafted Lock in the second round in 2019. Beset his rookie year by a thumb injury, Lock is 8-13 as an NFL starter after three seasons with the Broncos. Denver signed veteran Teddy Bridgewater to start over Lock before last season. That was basically the end of Lock in Denver.
Carroll and the Seahawks twice considered signing Kaepernick since he and the 49ers parted ways. That was following his 1-10 season for San Francisco in 2016 and the national howling over his kneeling protests that year.
In 2017, Seattle was the first and only NFL team to give Kaepernick a free-agent tryout. The Seahawks did not sign him. Carroll said at the time the reason was Kaepernick is a starting-quality quarterback in the league and the team already has one of those entrenched, Wilson.
The same was true in 2018 when Carroll and the Seahawks again considered Kaepernick. They instead ultimately traded with Green Bay for Brett Hundley to be their veteran backup to Wilson that season.
Since 2019 the Seahawks have gone with former New York Jets starter Geno Smith as their veteran backup to Wilson.
Now Wilson is gone.
Do Carroll’s thoughts on Kaepernick still apply?
In the summer of 2020, Carroll said he regretted not signing Kapernick to the Seahawks in 2017 or ‘18. That was after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd and amid national protests supporting Black Lives Matter and many of the same issues for which Kaepernick protested and essentially sacrificed his NFL career years earlier.
“I wouldn’t hesitate — and I’ve said this, ongoing, for years — if Russ ever got tangled up and couldn’t play or something, Kaep would have been an extraordinary candidate to take over. Because of the dynamics of his play,” Carroll said June 11, 2020.
“We always really cherish the unique qualities that players bring. And he had a unique style that we couldn’t have respected more.
“But as the backup, I hope he’s going to get a chance to do that. Because, really, he deserves to be playing. ...
“Really, simply put: I, we all held him in great regard as a player. We had coached against him in championship games and watched him go the Super Bowl. He beat us. We beat him. I think we knew Kaep as well as anybody could have known a player, because of the depth of competition we had against him. And when we had the opportunity, it had come up...”
That was almost two full years ago. Kaepernick now has been out of the league for five seasons.
Yet at this unique crossroads in the 70-year-old Carroll’s 12-year tenure leading the Seahawks, another tryout for Kaepernick would be a no-lose, potentially all-gain proposition.
If he proves too rusty and not ready to compete for Seattle’s job this fall, the team can walk away from the idea.
If he proves himself to be what Lockett thinks Kaepernick is, the Seahawks have a former Super Bowl starter to compete with the unproven Lock, 2021 third QB Jacob Eason and potentially a returning Smith — if not Watson or others — for the job this preseason.
“Looking forward to doing it again!” Kaepernick wrote on Twitter Monday following his workout with Lockett. “Who else is working? I’ll pull up.”
This story was originally published March 14, 2022 at 8:21 PM.
