Washington Redskins coach Jay Gruden may have been blowing smoke when he said that his injury-beset team seriously discussed signing former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick to step in after losing their first and second-string signal callers. According to an unnamed source who spoke to ESPN, none of that talk ever reached the quarterback.
Another league source told the network's senior writer Adam Schefter that no team had reached out to Kaepernick to gauge interest in playing or set up a workout. Instead of the 31-year-old QB who played in a Super Bowl as recently as 2013, the Redskins signed Mark Sanchez, a player best known for a play called the "Butt Fumble."
To back up Sanchez in his start against the New York Giants — a game they are currently losing by a score of 40 to 8 — the Skins signed Josh Johnson, who previously served as Kaepernick's backup in San Francisco.
Gruden said that the issue with Kaepernick comes down to game-planning. Before the Johnson signing, he said that Colin simply wasn't familiar with their offensive scheme.
"When you’re talking about a backup quarterback this late in the game you want someone with a similar skill set to the quarterback you have,” Gruden said, per ESPN. “Not that Colin can’t do some of the things we’ve talked about, but we want someone with a little more familiarity.”
It's worth noting that Kaepernick played in a West Coast offense under Jim Harbaugh. Johnson played under that same offense. And of all the names that have been mentioned in this article, Kaepernick absolutely has the most experience subbing into a system designed around the play of the Redskins first-stringer Alex Smith. Kaepernick replaced an injured Smith in San Francisco in a similar offense earlier this decade, eventually winning the starting job with his play.
The NFL really shouldn't make Kaepernick's collusion case this easy.
