Colin Kaepernick contract negotiations tabled until investigation wraps, according to report

NFL Network's Ian Rapoport is reporting the San Francisco 49ers and quarterback Colin Kaepernick have "tabled negotiations" while Miami police finish up their investigation. Rapoport also reported the two sides were not close in negotiations.

It is not surprising that the two sides will pump the brakes on negotiations until this distraction is out of the picture. As the situation has developed, it has become more and more apparent that Kaepernick did not do anything wrong, and very well might not have been there when the incident in question went down. Fox Sports 1's Mike Garafolo had a few tweets that included one notable new piece of information:

Re: Kaepernick contract talks being on hold, expectation is it won't be an extended pause. Just for now out of respect for investigation.

— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) April 18, 2014

Other note I said on @FOXSports1 Tues: sources say Lockette, not Kaepernick, said he was in contact w/ woman recently + invited her to apt.

— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) April 18, 2014

We know Lockette called 911 + claimed woman wouldn't leave. I'm told he's also disputed the woman's claims of what happened in the bedroom.

— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) April 18, 2014

The initial police incident report was strictly the girl's side of this. She mentioned the marijuana and drinking, fooling around with Kap, and Lockette and Patton looking in her room before she passed out. We still don't have an official police report on this, so we're left with anonymous sources. At some point though, I fully expect this to go away. Some people will find ways to criticize Kap for it (Lowell Cohn and Mike Freeman have already handled that for us!), but based on how this is progressing, odds are pretty good, people will have to recognize that Colin Kaepernick probably did nothing wrong.

Rapoport's report included a mention that the two sides are far apart, "negotiations were not going well". That is certainly not an ideal situation, but given the kind of dollars involved, I'm not overly concerned about it at this point. It's still only April, which means the team has five months until the regular season starts. Both sides would like to get a deal done before the 2014 regular season starts, and probably before training camp really gets going. It's a complicated contract, so it's going to take some time. It's important to be aware of what's going on, but no need to get concerned about it at this point.