Colin Kaepernick had surgery earlier this week in Colorado to repair a torn labrum, and is back in California to rehab it over the next several months. The injury could require a four-to-six month rehab process, and there will be plenty to track of that. In the meantime, there has been plenty of discussion about the nature of the injury and what's next for Kaepernick and the 49ers.
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Earlier this week, the Papa & Lund Football Hour were discussing the injury on 95.7 The Game with Bill Romanowski and Lorenzo Neal. During that discussion, things took a quick detour courtesy of Romo. The one-time 49ers and Broncos player was talking about the injury at the 10:50 mark, but then quickly changed the tune of the conversation about Kaepernick. Romo does not strike me as the most subtle of people, and so, he decided to abruptly share something he heard:
Let's talk Colin preparing for games. And you know how they get iPads now. And they regulate, and they can watch how much film you watch. Gabbert, when he was a backup, was watching four to five times as much film as Colin was.
At the 35 minute mark, Romo adds another comment about last year's 49ers-Raiders game at the Oakland Coliseum. he said that, "[s]omeone drove [Kaepernick's] car to the Coliseum. He rode the bus to the stadium, and then could leave in his own car from the game." He also talked about Harbaugh supposedly coddling Kaepernick.
Whether the 49ers can in fact see how much film a player is watching or not, somebody is leaking something. This could be someone in the front office who wants to make Kaepernick look bad. Of course, given how badly the brass does appear to be leaking, anybody could very well leak something and people will think it's the 49ers. That's how far down the rabbit hole we have gone with this mess of a situation.
People have asked, well, why would the 49ers leak so much negative information about Kaepernick if they wanted to trade him. A smear campaign only hurts Kaepernick's value if the 49ers try and trade him. Of course, in light of Kap's shoulder injury, a trade could end up out of the question entirely. If that's the case, the team will likely cut him at some point, either straightaway if they think he's healthy, or with some kind of injury settlement.
It still does not seem necessary to leak out whatever they can to smear Kaepernick's name, but nothing at this point makes a whole lot of sense. Like I said, we could completely overthink this and consider the possibility that someone outside of the 49ers knows this will make them look bad. This situation is that screwed up that nothing would surprise me at this point. Maybe that's what Jed York has planned all along? Leak as much as humanly possible so eventually people doubt it's coming from you. Well played, Jed. Well played.