Los Angeles Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh was forced into a public declaration that Colin Kaepernick would not be joining his team in any capacity – as coach or player.
Harbaugh said Kaepernick definitively “will not be with the Chargers” this season.
Of course, that leaves the door open as a future hire, but for now, Kaepernick’s dreams of a triumphant return to the NFL have been put on hold.
“I love Colin, and always will, and that gets conflated into he might play here or might coach here,” Harbaugh said. “I love Colin, but he’s not going to be on the coaching staff — it’s set for this year.
“And he’s not going to be playing on the roster either.”
Colin Kaepernick Officially Not With The Chargers This Year
Ya gotta hand it to Harbaugh. Accusing fans and reporters of ‘conflating’ his appreciation for Colin Kaepernick into suggesting he might coach or play with the Chargers.
Of course, nothing gets conflated Jim if, and I’m going to use my Chris Farley/Matt Foley voice here, “you could just shut your big yapper!”
The former Michigan coach is the one who teased the idea, telling reporters, “If that was ever the path he was to take, I think that would be tremendous. He’d be a tremendous coach, if that’s the path he chose.”
Then he moved beyond teasing and told USA Today that he actually offered him a job.
“He’s considering it. He was out of the country. He said he was going to get back to me,” Harbaugh said. “We haven’t reconnected since then. That was early, early in the year.”
That’s not conflating. That’s reporting what he said. He claimed Kap would be a tremendous coach and that he already offered him a job!
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Kaepernick Still Thinks He Can Win A Super Bowl
It’s bad enough Kaepernick couldn’t land a low-level coaching gig with the Chargers, but he actually still has his sights set on playing quarterback in the NFL.
And Harbaugh stomped a mud hole in that idea as well.
“It’s something I’ve trained my whole life for, so to be able to step back on the field, I think that would be a major moment, a major accomplishment for me,” Kaepernick told a reporter recently.
“I think I could bring a lot to a team and help them win a championship.”
Not with the Chargers. At least not this season.
Maybe he’s just saying these things to try and stay relevant. After all, this is a guy who walked away from the 49ers and made himself a free agent, then whined that he was blacklisted from the NFL. Now, Harbaugh says he offered Kaepernick a coaching position but never got a call back.
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