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Colin Kaepernick Set To Work Out For Raiders One Month After Team’s Owner Said, “I Would Welcome Him With Open Arms”

Tom Tapp
·4-min read

UPDATED: Colin Kaepernick, who has not thrown a pass in the NFL since 2016, will work out this week for the Las Vegas Raiders, according to ESPN’s Senior NFL Insider Adam Schefter. Yahoo Sports also confirmed the news with what it said were two sources close to the quarterback.

A little less than a month ago, Raiders owner Mark Davis said of Kaepernick that he “would welcome him with open arms” so long as the team’s coaches and GM were on board. “He deserves every chance in the world to become a quarterback in the National Football League,” said Davis.

Kaepernick, 34, has made it clear he would like to return to the league. He frequently posts footage online of his workouts with other players and skills coaches. Last month, he shared a video of a visit he made to the University of Michigan where he says he was “excited to be named Honorary Captain and to get some throws in at halftime.”

Last year, Netflix released Colin in Black and White, a series he starred in and co-produced with Ava DuVernay that explores Kaepernick’s high school years, his development as an athlete and human and the experiences that led him to become an activist.

PREVIOUSLY on April 28: “I believe in Colin Kaepernick,” said Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis last night in an interview with NBC Sports Bay Area. “He deserves every chance in the world to become a quarterback in the National Football League. I still stand by it. If our coaches and general manager want to bring him in or want him to be the quarterback on this team, I would welcome him with open arms.”

Kaepernick played six seasons for the San Francisco 49ers before being essentially blacklisted by the NFL for taking a knee in during the national anthem in 2016 to protest racism and police violence. Kaepernick became a free agent after the 2016 season and went unsigned.

In 2017, he filed a grievance against the NFL and its team owners. The legal filing accused the parties of colluding to keep Kaepernick out of the league. He reached a confidential settlement with the NFL in 2019 and subsequently withdrew the lawsuit. Kaepernick has since said he’d be willing to become a backup quarterback in the league, but remains unsigned.

The Raiders have long been a franchise willing to buck the status quo. They have also been long committed to their current quarterback Derek Carr, who just signed a three-year, $121.5 contract extension that runs through 2025. The Raiders have potential backup candidates in Nick Mullens and Garrett Gilbert, each of whom has less experience than Kaepernick.

According to Davis, any decision on the former 49ers starter will fall to the Raiders’ new GM and its new head coach, Josh McDaniels.

“I think Colin is a very misunderstood human being,” Davis said. “I’ve gotten a chance to talk to him. I never really knew Colin, and I didn’t understand him. I didn’t understand the kneeling, what that meant initially. Over time, I have learned a little bit more about it.

“I understand [now] where he was coming from. He’s got a message for society as a whole.”

Davis compared Kaepernick to Tommie Smith, whom he called a friend. Smith, who is Black, set the 200-meter record and won gold in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, but was excommunicated from the Games after he and bronze medalist John Carlos offered the Black power salute on the podium in a protest against racial oppression.

“In the same vein, Colin Kaepernick has sacrificed a lot of the things that he could have been doing in his life to get a message across about police violence and equity and inclusion in America,” said Davis. “I stand by that.”

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