So, it would appear that Colin Kaepernick, who has not played professional football since the end of the NFL’s 2016 regular season, is ready (as he has apparently always been) to return to the NFL. While the NFL will not appreciate the kicker of the Twitter update he posted on Wednesday — “Denied work for 889 days” won’t make him a lot of friends, even if it’s true — it’s clear that Kaepernick, whom we last saw throwing 16 touchdowns and just four interceptions for the 49ers in 2016, is ready to be considered a starting quarterback again.
This, of course, raises all kinds of questions. Will an NFL team want the controversy that comes with having an activist on its roster? How sharp would Kaepernick be after two seasons out of the league. And does he really think he’s better than any number of starting quarterbacks currently in the NFL?
If you go down the list of NFL quarterbacks, it indeed could be argued that Kaepernick would have a better shot at making an offense dynamic than many signal-callers who currently hold these positions. Here are eight starting NFL quarterbacks — representing a full quarter of the league — who could legitimately find their jobs taken by Kaepernick, based on pure merit and nothing else.
For a further frame of reference, in 2016, Kaepernick completed 196 of 331 passes in 12 games for 2,241 yards, 16 touchdowns and four interceptions. He ranked 23rd in Pro Football Reference’s “adjusted net yards per attempt” metric, and his primary receivers were Jeremy Kerley, Quinton Patton, Garrett Celek and Torrey Smith. The 2016 49ers went 2-14 under Chip Kelly.
Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills
Selected seventh overall in the 2018 draft out of Wyoming, Allen has a cannon for an arm. Per Pro Football Focus, he led all NFL quarterbacks last season with a 19.7% rate of passing attempts traveling at least 20 air yards. Allen completed 18 of 63 deep passes for 580 yards, seven touchdowns and seven interceptions. Overall, in 11 games, he completed 52.8% of his passes for 2,074 yards, 10 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Allen had a higher yards-per-attempt total as a runner (7.1) than as a passer (6.5), and he ranked 32nd in adjusted net yards per attempt.
Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens
In Baltimore, the big news is the “new offense” Greg Roman is installing. It’s an offense second-year quarterback Lamar Jackson wasn’t aware his team was installing, and per head coach John Harbaugh, it’s an offense that will keep defenses on their heels.
“We’re going to live in different aspects of football,” Harbaugh said in April. “You know, dropback pass, downhill running game, RPO, triple-option type run game, play-action pass, wide-zone plays. We’re going to be doing a lot of different things to keep people off balance and create numbers advantages for us.”
Hmmm. Sounds a lot like the offense Roman and head coach Jim Harbaugh installed for Kaepernick when he was San Francisco’s successful starting quarterback from 2012 through 2014. Hopefully, Jackson will be able to improve on his rookie statistics: a 58.2% completion rate and six touchdowns in 170 regular-season attempts.
The Ravens would seem to want Jackson to be the next Kaepernick. Why not bring in the actual Kaepernick to help the kid out — especially since Kaepernick has already proved to be a friend to Baltimore at a time when certain prominent politicians definitely are not.
Andy Dalton, Cincinnati Bengals
In 2018, Dalton completed 61.9% of his passes for 2,566 yards, 21 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. He ranked 23rd in ANY/A in 11 starts, and he hasn’t been able to lead his team to the playoffs since 2015. The hope is that under new head coach Zac Taylor, Dalton will benefit from an offense in which he’s using play-action more, and getting the ball out quicker. That said, in an era with the most wide-open passing concepts in NFL history, Dalton hasn’t thrown for more than 25 touchdown passes in a season since 2013. If something doesn’t click in 2019, Dalton’s time may run out in Cincinnati.
Joe Flacco, Denver Broncos
John Elway is convinced that Joe Flacco is just entering his prime. Football Outsiders recently pointed out in its Almanac that 30 quarterbacks have thrown at least 1,000 passes over the past four seasons. Of those 30, Flacco has the lowest yards per attempt at 6.32 and ranks 29th in both passer rating and ANY/A, in both cases finishing just ahead of Brock Osweiler — whom the Broncos also have tried to make a thing in their post-Peyton Manning Circle of Mediocre Quarterbacks.
That Elway thinks Flacco is a perfect fit for Denver’s offensive system makes you wonder what Elway thinks of that system.
Ryan Fitzpatrick, Miami Dolphins
We might as well include second-year quarterback Josh Rosen in this one, though nobody knows what Rosen — who failed to receive competent offensive coaching at either UCLA or with the Arizona Cardinals — still might do with a half-decent playbook and an offensive line than can block anybody.
But the Dolphins are currently riding with Fitzpatrick, who did throw 31 touchdown passes for the Jets — in 2015. Over the past two seasons for the Buccaneers, he’s thrown 24 touchdown passes to 15 interceptions as Jameis Winston’s backup. The 2018 version of Rosen, like Kaepernick in 2016, was saddled with the NFL’s worst combination of coaching and personnel, and he completed 55.2% of his passes for 2,278 yards, 11 touchdowns and 14 interceptions.
Eli Manning, New York Giants
When you have two Super Bowl MVP awards in your possession, your team tends to give you a lot of latitude in the twilight of your career. That’s certainly been the case with the 38-year-old Manning, who has thrown 66 touchdown passes and 40 interceptions over the past three seasons. Manning did complete 66% of his passes in 2018 for 4,299 yards, 21 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, but he also struggled mightily to throw accurately and with timing on deep passes.
As for first-round pick Daniel Jones … well, to say that he’s ready for the rigors of the NFL would be a serious stretch based on his college tape. When you complete 59.9% of your collegiate passes for 52 touchdowns and 29 interceptions in a career, while Dwayne Haskins and Kyler Murray are throwing nearly that many TD passes in a season, it’s difficult to say what the future holds.
Jimmy Garoppolo, San Francisco 49ers
The 49ers moved on from Kaepernick after the 2016 season and brought in Garoppolo, the former Tom Brady backup, to replace him. Half a season with Brian Hoyer and C.J. Beathard wasn’t good enough, so the team traded a second-round pick on Oct. 31, 2017, for Garoppolo’s services. When he has been healthy — and he missed 13 games with a torn ACL in 2018 — Garoppolo has been average at best. He’s completed 64.8% of his passes for 2,278 yards, 12 touchdowns, and eight interceptions for his new team — and the tape shows a quarterback who struggles to read advanced coverages, doesn’t always pick up his second and third receivers, and makes too many plays out of random situations.
Those are similar criticisms to the ones leveled at Kaepernick during his NFL career, but the 49ers didn’t give Kaepernick a five-year, $137.5 million contract extension.
Case Keenum, Washington Redskins
First-round pick Dwayne Haskins is undoubtedly Washington’s quarterback of the future, though he’ll have to figure out how to overcome serious issues when moving outside the pocket and throwing under pressure before he can make it at the NFL level.
At this point, the quarterback competition under head coach Jay Gruden has Case Keenum and Colt McCoy fighting it out for reps with Haskins. Aside from an outlier 2017 season for the Vikings, in which he proved to be an estimable deep thrower and was lifted out of the replacement level in Pat Shurmur’s schemes, Keenum has been the very definition of league average. Remove 2017, and he has a career total of 42 touchdown passes and 35 interceptions.
McCoy hasn’t been a primary starter for any NFL team since 2011.
