Earlier Tuesday afternoon, Mindi Bach reported that the Denver Broncos were offering Colin Kaepernick $7 million in each of the 2016 and 2017 seasons as part of a restructured contract. She was not aware of what that meant for the seasons beyond.
Tim Kawakami has a source that provided a little bit more. His source thinks this thing is not ending anytime soon. This is not a surprising revelation given the last couple days, but it's something to add to the mix. I've posted his tweets down below. He suggests the draft is the next pressure point, and acknowledged Matt Barrows' point that the April 18 start of the Denver Broncos offseason workout program is probably one as well.
Earlier today, I did an interview with Steve Bortstein of FOX 1340 AM in New Mexico (audio). He asked for a prediction on how this would resolve itself. I said Colin Kaepernick would be starting for the Broncos Week 1, and decided to get a little more specific. I predicted the trade would happen the Friday of the draft. That would be the time after Round 1 and Round 2. Right before the Broncos program makes sense as well, but I'll go with that Friday. Jason Fitzgerald from Over The Cap did raise a good point about how the Broncos would need to do a lot to get under the cap with Kaepernick, so my prediction could prove dead on arrival. We'll see.
The thing with any of those predictions is that none of the three parties has shown an inclination to blink first. It could happen all of a sudden out of nowhere, but for the moment, there is no indication this situation will resolve itself anytime soon. It's kind of crazy.
Source: Kaepernick-49ers-Denver stalemate is about more than the $5M gap in 2016 salary. Many complications. This is going to take a while.
— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) April 6, 2016
At the moment, Denver is believed to be seeking a long-term deal with Kaepernick that would wipe away all his large future salaries...
— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) April 6, 2016
Kaepernick's camp has discussed knocking down this year's salary, but doesn't want to lose the chance at larger salaries into the future...
— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) April 6, 2016
Denver is not budging. 49ers are not budging. Kaepernick is not budging. End result: He'll stay in camp, collect the $14M due to him...
— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) April 6, 2016
Next pressure point will be the draft later this month. Things obviously could change. But as I said, there are a lot of unsettled issues.
— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) April 6, 2016
Some or all of this has been reported or suggested by others, including @MBachCSN. But what I've heard tonight is this could go on and on.
— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) April 6, 2016
Yep definitely. https://t.co/4YRVpPO2g8
— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) April 6, 2016