Three years removed from taking the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl, Colin Kaepernick will reportedly be benched Tuesday in favor of a quarterback who last started in 2013 when he went winless with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
According to a report by the Bay Area Sports Guy blog, Kaepernick’s struggles for the past two seasons have resulted in the 49ers going with Blaine Gabbert for their Week 9 game against the Atlanta Falcons.
Numerous other outlets have reported 49ers dissatisfaction with their franchise quarterback. For example, Jason Cole of Bleacher Report said that two 49ers players had told him in text messages that Kaepernick needed to be benched. And head coach Jim Tomsula was noncommittal Monday on whether Kaepernick was the team’s quarterback saying instead that “we’re evaluating everyone.”
The 49ers are 2-6 this year and Kaepernick’s play has been heavily criticized, as his quarterback rating has gone down from 98.3 during the team’s NFC Championship season to just 78.8 so far this year.
Last year and this year have seen career lows for Kaepernick in a variety of categories such as interception percentage and interception percentage as NFL defenses have largely caught up to read-option running quarterbacks such as Kaepernick and Robert Griffin III of the Washington Redskins, who were the toast of the league and signed fat contracts in 2012 and 2013.
Gabbert went 0-3 during his last starting stint, for the Jaguars in 2013, and was 1-9 with the team the year before.
According to SB Nation — and again like the Redskins and Griffin — “the 49ers have a large financial incentive to keeping Kaepernick healthy. As long as he is unhurt, the team can release him before April 1 without taking a massive hit to their salary cap. If he gets hurt, his 2016 salary would become guaranteed.”
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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