Written by David Steele at Sporting News.com
For some reason there’s a powerful, viral strain of honesty running through NFL team front offices this week. Teams suddenly are telling the truth about Colin Kaepernick, who is still unemployed on June 1, nearly three months into free agency.
Giants owner John Mara’s revelations were more on the aggravating side (not to mention disingenuous in light of his own history with supposed “problem” players). 49ers general manager John Lynch, however, was refreshing in correcting the record.
Somebody had to douse the fire of rumor, innuendo and outright smear dominating the conversation around Kaepernick’s continued unemployment. Lynch took it upon himself, to NBC Sports Network’s Pro Football Talk Live in an interview to be aired soon.
It won’t stop insiders and outsiders from trashing Kaepernick’s character strictly to hide the real reasons for rejecting him (the reasons Mara gave, for example). But the transparency still helps.
The talk about “walking away from $15 million,” for example: How that was leading to outrageous contract demands that no team wanted to meet, and about how he’d still be on the 49ers’ roster if he hadn’t turned them down, so he has no one to blame but himself.
Not true, Lynch said: He, new coach Kyle Shanahan and Kaepernick had discussed it all, and all sides knew that either they would cut him, or he would opt out.
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