The saga that is the status of the San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick was not made any more clear by GM Trent Baalke during his pre-draft chat with the media. The GM has not met face to face with the QB since he has been back in Santa Clara after rehabbing in Colorado during the offseason, but Baalke said he also has not met in person with approximately 85% of the team at this point.
Kaepernick, who reported to the facility at the beginning of phase one of the offseason program, is still mostly rehabbing.
He's rehabbing and that seems to be progressing very well and he's doing some, you know, I haven't been out there, but my understanding is that he's doing some drops and stuff like that, mimicking the plays that go on and just kind of getting a feel for the offense, the timing, the rhythm of it. He's not able to do anything much more than that at this point.
Baalke stated that the QB's status has not changed since the last time he spoke to the media, at the combine in February. The team's intention is to keep Kaepernick on the roster.
A lot of reports have been out there surfacing, most of it not factual, but I can't control, that or we can't control that. I maintain from day one as [does] the head coach, would love to get him out there and work within this system with this coaching staff. That's not changed.
Baalke would not say definitively that Kaepernick is "off" the trade market, citing: "You never say never in this business, that gets you in trouble." He did say that activity between the QB, his representation and the team, since the request to seek a trade, will remain in house and off the record. He remains elusive on the desire to pick a QB in the draft as well. When asked if packaging a QB with a pick was a trade option, Baalke replied:
We've got two darn good quarterbacks that we feel good about. I don't know Thad [Lewis] well enough, coach is high on on Thad, Dylan [Thompson] has come in and done a good job. I think there's a lot of speculation that we're panicked and need to do something. I don't look at it that way. I feel good about the guys on our roster. I feel like we can go win some games. Kap's won a lot of games in the National Football League. Blaine finished up the year strong.
How likely are the 49ers to draft a quarterback in the early rounds?
I wouldn't want to put a percentage on it. We're certainly not out of the market, you know, if that helps. That's about as much as I can give. We've looked hard at all of these quarterbacks in this draft and there's some guys who have a chance.
During this talk, it was announced that the Eagles had moved up to the second spot in the draft. Baalke said he wasn't surprised, saying that the draft is fluid, changing daily, sometimes hourly and he's been in the draft room from 7am-7pm preparing for all possible scenarios.