There’s been a lot of discussion around former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick recently. That especially intensified earlier this week around rapper J.Cole revealing the letter Kaepernick set to New York Jets’ general manager Joe Douglas, with Kaepernick pitching Douglas for a spot on the practice squad.
The Jets didn’t take Kaepernick up on that offer in the end, instead signing Trevor Siemian. But another professional team has now indicated their interest in Kaepernick. That would be the B.C. Lions of the Canadian Football League, with TSN’s Farhan Lalji reporting Thursday that the Lions have added Kaepernick to their negotiation list:
The @BCLions have put Colin Kaepernick on their negotiation list. @SportsCentre pic.twitter.com/QT0lw8efqr
— Farhan Lalji (@FarhanLaljiTSN) September 28, 2023
It should be noted that merely adding a player to a negotiation list doesn’t necessarily mean anything. The negotiation list is a CFL quirk, a place where each of the league’s nine teams can add up to 45 players. That doesn’t mean that those players have any agreement with the team or will ever play a CFL down, and most do not. It merely means that if that player comes to the CFL, they either have to sign with the team that has them neg-listed or convince that team to trade their rights to a different preferred destination. (And players on that list have the option to activate a 10-day clause of their own, forcing the CFL team to either make them a offer or let their rights go, as we saw with Terrell Owens in 2018.)
And Kaepernick has been on CFL negotiation lists before with no deal being signed. Kaepernick was on the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ negotiating list from March to September 2017 before they dropped him, despite his agent saying he had no CFL interest at that point. Later that September, the Montreal Alouettes added Kaepernick and reached out to his agent, but didn’t get anywhere. In August 2020, 3 Down Nation’s Justin Dunk reported that Kaepernick was again on the Ticats’ negotiation list. (Negotiation lists are usually secret apart from reporters being occasionally able to obtain a few names, but in the last few years, the CFL has gone to making teams each reveal 10 names on their list each September and December; Kaepernick was not amongst those revelations last December or this month.)
CFL negotiation lists do sometimes pay off, though, and sometimes with bigger names than you might expect. One highly-publicized one was with Johnny Manziel, who first tried out with the Tiger-Cats in 2017, signed with them in 2018 (after a special plan from the league commissioner given Manziel’s past domestic violence incidents), played briefly as a backup there, forced a trade to the Alouettes, started for them briefly (producing some ups and downs), and then got released by the team and banned from the league after contravening the conditions of his contract in February 2019.
But some other notable names have come to the CFL with less drama. Those include former Alabama/Indianapolis Colts RB (and former NFL first-round pick) Trent Richardson and former Ole Miss star QB Chad Kelly (who backed up his talk this year and earned a big new contract, leading the Toronto Argonauts to the league’s best record this season after replacing 2022 CFL passing leader McLeod Bethel-Thompson, who left for the USFL this offseason). And some big-name players have come in with some drama but still produced notable results, including Chad Johnson in 2014.
The question here is if Kaepernick would want this. Back in 2017 and 2020, he clearly didn’t. And that’s understandable; beyond largely being not on the sports radar in the U.S. (although it currently has a CBS Sports Network deal and streams the rest of its games for free) the CFL is a difficult league to adapt to. And that’s particularly true for quarterbacks given the rule changes from American football (including 12 men a side, three downs, and a longer and wider field), with many eventually-successful CFL QBs (including Kelly) first needing to spend time as backups.
That may not be that desirable for Kaepernick. And he’d certainly need to take a lesser role (at least to start) in B.C., with Vernon Adams Jr. doing well there so far (after Nathan Rourke’s offseason exit for the NFL, where he played well for the Jacksonville Jaguars in the preseason, was released, but was signed back to their practice squad) and leading the Lions to a 10-4 record to date (tied for tops in the West).
But Kaepernick’s mobility has long had him discussed as a QB who could be a good fit for the CFL. And that league does have a long history of embracing talented quarterbacks the NFL hasn’t wanted for one reason or another. And with Kaepernick now 35 (and turning 36 in November), and with NFL teams still seemingly not too interested in him, and with his last NFL play in 2016 now further in the rear-view mirror, the CFL may be a more compelling opportunity for him than it was in the past.
[Farhan Lalji on Twitter>A?]
