The Alliance of American Football and NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick spoke about playing in the AAF, but Kaepernick may have wanted something a bit out of their budget: $20 million.
At the end of the day, both might not have had interest at all in the idea.
Thursday evening, The Athletic’s Lindsay Jones reported that AAF co-founder Bill Polian said that league CEO Charlie Ebersol spoke to Kaepernick. Kaepernick never received a uniform.
“I don’t know what transpired, but he’s obviously not playing,” Polian said.
Jones later went on to report that the conversation between Kaepernick and the AAF was not initiated by the league.
Polian also said he reached out to former Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow personally. Tebow declined.
Following Jones’ initial report of the AAF’s possible interest in Kaepernick, Barry Wilner of the Associated Press reported that Kaepernick set his price at $20 million or more. A far cry from the 3-year, $250k contracts AAF players make. Needless to say, that may have been the end of any potential negotiations.
A new wrinkle in the reports came later on Twitter. Benjamin Allbright reported that the earlier AP story may have been inaccurate. His final tweet of the night put a wrinkle into things:
The AAF wasn't really interested. They want to be a developmental league. They added Trent Richardson to the local Alabama team to generate interest, but overall they dont want to be a dumping ground for players that are over 30 and trying to hang on.
— Benjamin Allbright (@AllbrightNFL) February 15, 2019
Kaepernick is 31 years old.
The question is how serious or interested either side was. If Kaepernick asked for $20 million, was it a serious salary requirement? And how serious was the AAF on bringing him in given his age and their need to not want, “a dumping ground.”
With that final tweet, things appear to be at square one. More should come out on this in the coming days on what happened during any possible negotiations, if they even reached the negotiating room. We might then see if the AAF—and/or Kaepernick—were at all serious about doing business and what dollar figures—if any—were floating around.