Colin Kaepernick's wait to join an NFL team will continue. After the Baltimore Ravens had discussions about possibly bringing in the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, they signed an arena league quarterback named David Olson. Baltimore was in the market for a quarterback after it was revealed that starter Joe Flacco was expected to miss some time with a disc issue in his back.
#Ravens signed a QB today. It's David Olson of the KC Phantoms of the CIF -- an arena league. He worked out today (@DraftDiamonds on it 1st)
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) July 28, 2017
QB David Olson played for Jim Harbaugh at Stanford. He gave Olson a good review to John. He'll join the #Ravens for practice tomorrow.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) July 28, 2017
Now, it is possible that Kaepernick could be in play for Baltimore down the road. For now, Olson fills the need of a camp arm until Flacco can return. He worked out for the Ravens on Thursday and showed enough to warrant a contract.
The Ravens were just the second reported team that has shown interest in Kaepernick. The quarterback worked out for the Seattle Seahawks on March 24th but remained unsigned. Seattle opted to sign quarterback Austin Davis in favor of Kaepernick.
The 49ers did not show any interest in bringing back any of the quarterbacks who were part of the roster in 2016. Kaepernick, who opted out of the final year of his contract with the 49ers in March, became a free agent for the first time in his career. He had been scheduled to make $14.9 million in 2017 and, had he not opted out of his contract, the 49ers would have likely released him. Since then, Kaepernick has not received much interest from NFL teams.
Many believe that much of the reasoning behind the shun is attributed to Kaepernick's controversial protest of the national anthem last season. Kaepernick is also seen as a backup quarterback who fits a very specific style of offense. That also likely contributed to his lengthy unemployment and was the reason given by 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan during a press conference with the media on Thursday.
"I thought with Colin and any quarterback situation it was where do you want to go with your scheme," Shanahan said. "Where do you want to go with your roster? I looked at it solely into where I wanted to go with the offensive scheme. I think Colin's had a lot of success in this league and I think he still can have success, but you've got to commit to a certain type of scheme that gives him the best chance to succeed. I think when we knew we didn't want to fully bring him in as the starter, I thought it was a big commitment to make for a guy that I wasn't sure was going to be the starter and that's really more what you look at.
"People say, 'Why don't you just do what a guy is good at when he comes in?' Well, the guy is only good if you've been practicing the other 10 guys on offense at that too. That's something that makes it very hard when all your quarterbacks need a little bit different scheme to be successful. It doesn't allow your O-Line to be consistent at what they're working at and things like that.
When we got a chance to get Brain (Hoyer) and then we got Matt (Barkley) and then ended up getting C.J. (Beathard) in the draft and getting Nick (Mullens) in free agency, we've got a skillset of quarterbacks where I think in order to give them a chance to be successful our offense is going to be somewhat similar with all of them and that makes it a little bit easier on the rest of the guys."
