San Francisco 49ers Giving Colin Kaepernick His Last Chance
By Erik Lambert
It looks like the San Francisco 49ers finally reached their breaking point with Blaine Gabbert as the starting quarterback. No surprise given his recent play.
He had another largely ineffective night throwing the football against the Arizona Cardinals. This despite numerous opportunities to hit big plays. He missed some wide open receivers and too often just couldn’t find a place to throw the football. Though he ran for 78 yards and touchdown, he had just 162 yards passing with a touchdown and two interceptions. Those interceptions proved the most costly. Arizona got most of their points off turnovers.
Head coach Chip Kelly has been more than patient, giving Gabbert four weeks to prove he should be the starter moving forward. The 49ers are 1-3. That pretty much say it all. Thus it appears a decision was reached. Odds are Gabbert will be benched and Colin Kaepernick will get his opportunity to regain the job he lost last year.
It would mark the first time Kaepernick has started a game since November of 2015. At that time he was playing the worst football of his career. For that season he had 1,615 yards passing with six touchdowns and five interceptions in eight games. Far from the productivity he enjoyed in 2012 and 2013. So there is no telling who the 49ers will get if they make this decision. The general feeling around that team is whatever mojo he once had is gone.
In fact there is a rumor insisting many players in the locker room would prefer third-stringer Christian Ponder to start.
"While the most obvious move would be to promote Colin Kaepernick into the starting role, sources told CSNBayArea.com on Friday morning that there is some support among the team’s offensive players for Christian Ponder to move ahead of both Gabbert and Kaepernick.“Ponder is the best option for quarterback on the roster,” said a locker-room source."
If that’s not an indictment of Kaepernick’s standing in the locker room, what else could be. The most he’s done the past couple years is cause a nationwide controversy over his decision to sit or kneel during the national anthem due to protests against police violence. It just hasn’t felt like his main focus is football. So if the San Francisco 49ers are set on going through with it, they’ll have to live with the consequence.