Nearly a decade after playing his last NFL game, Colin Kaepernick says he’s still prepared to make a return to the field. The 38-year-old former quarterback told Us Weekly in an interview published Monday that he’s ready if a team calls. “We got the cleats by the door,” Kaepernick said. “We’ll be out the door.”
The Colin Kaepernick NFL return talk isn’t new, but his confidence hasn’t wavered. He “wholeheartedly” agreed that there are NFL teams that could benefit from his talents. When asked how many of the league’s 32 current starting quarterbacks he believes he could outperform, Kaepernick said he hasn’t been closely watching games but has been keeping an eye on the statistics. “It’s tough to say because I haven’t been watching the games, but I will check the stat lines to see where quarterbacks are at,” he said. “Based upon that, I think there’s a good amount.”
Kaepernick last played in 2016, the season he began kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality. He became a free agent in 2017 and has not been signed since. He has continued training, worked as an activist and entrepreneur, and settled a collusion grievance against the NFL in 2019. He has not formally retired and has said repeatedly over the years that he remains available. Whether any team will bring him in remains to be seen.
