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Colin Kaepernick hasn’t played a down in football since the 2016 season with the San Francisco 49ers, but that hasn’t stopped some NFL fans from clamoring for his return to the gridiron.
Reports indicated Monday that Philip Rivers would be working out for the Indianapolis Colts as the AFC South team’s season spirals out of control with all three of its quarterbacks injured. Rivers played the 2020 season with the Colts and then retired. He recently turned 44 and became a grandfather.
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Eli Harold #58, Colin Kaepernick #7 and Eric Reid #35 of the San Francisco 49ers kneel in protest on the sideline during the anthem prior to the game against the Buffalo Bills at New Era Field on October 16, 2016 in Orchard Park, New York. (Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images)
NFL fans suggested on social media that the Colts should give Kaepernick a look despite the quarterback being out of the league for nearly 10 years.
He’s still hoping he’ll get another NFL shot, and his girlfriend made that clear as recently as August.
“All day, every day,” Nessa Diab told TMZ Sports over the weekend. “Nothing has changed.”
She added that he “of course” still wants to play.
“It’s up to the teams whether they want to let him,” she said.
Kaepernick, 38, last suited up in the 2016 season when he created a firestorm protesting racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem. He was 17-of-22 for 215 yards and a touchdown in his last NFL game against the Seattle Seahawks.
Since then, teams haven’t been interested in Kaepernick enough to put him on their roster — even in training camp.
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Colin Kaepernick #7 of the San Francisco 49ers drops back to pass against the Seattle Seahawks in the second quarter of their NFL football game at Levi’s Stadium on January 1, 2017 in Santa Clara, California. (Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
Kaepernick has also built his social activist platform through Know Your Rights Camp and Kaepernick Publishing. He has compared the NFL draft to a slave auction, called for the abolition of law enforcement and suggested that the NFL has not taken meaningful steps to address social injustices.
Late last year, he admitted to NPR that he misses football and still worked out if a team called.
“I will forever miss it,” he said at the time while promoting his new children’s book We Are Free You & Me. “And I continue to train for it.
“At the end of the day, I don’t want to be in a position where I look back and have to question whether I didn’t give everything to try to pursue it. I want to make sure the reason I’m not playing is not because of my work ethic or commitment, but because I was kept out of it.”
Kaepernick told Pakinomist he still believed he could lead a team to a Super Bowl.
“We’re still training, we’re still pushing,” he said. “So hopefully. We just have to get one of these team owners to open up.
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“It’s something I’ve trained my whole life for, so to be able to step back on the field, I think it would be a big moment, a big accomplishment for me. I think I could bring a lot to a team and help them win a championship.”
