NFL news: 'Not much' movement in signing Colin Kaepernick

There was a lot of talk about Colin Kapernick making his NFL return recently. However, there is "not much" movement on that front at the moment.

The NFL and quarterback Colin Kaepernick have had a strained relationship, dating back to the end of the 2016 season. Since then, he has not played for another team, and a lot of people believe that he was blackballed by the league because of his choice to kneel during the national anthem in protest of police brutality.

However, with a renewed national focus on the fight against police brutality and social injustice and more NFL players, coaches and owners joining in, Kaepernick's name has come up. And it's possible teams could now be more open to signing him.

Kaepernick had a workout in 2019, but a lot of people saw that as a public relations move by the NFL and it didn't result in him joining a team. But even though the temperature has recently changed in regard to Kaepernick, he's still awaiting teams' calls.

And according ESPN's Jeff Darlington (via Garrett Stepien of 247Sports.com), there has not been much movement:

“Well, not much [movement], in a word … This is a situation where it has certainly become trendy for people to say that, ‘Yes, I'd be willing to sign Colin Kaepernick.' Yet, that has not yet been followed by signing Colin Kaepernick. So a situation that continues to be fluid at a time. … The more I hear from people saying they're interested in signing Kaepernick, the more I wonder why he is not yet signed.

“One point I would make here is that I was speaking with a couple people recently, in NFL circles, and they actually pointed out to me something about this. If a team is still actually using the excuse that it would be a distraction to sign Colin Kaepernick, there is actually no better time than right now to do so. You conduct interviews through Zoom calls. People aren't even allowed in the facility. Everything is really controlled. So the idea that Kaepernick would be a distraction to a team right now, quite honestly, just isn't the case.”

Most teams have not even signed their first round picks from the 2020 NFL Draft yet. It may just be that talking to or signing free agents is not a priority right now.

As Darlington mentions, NFL teams are currently in controlled environments. So teams would not have to worry about a “media circus” surrounding Kaepernick if they were to speak with him. However, that hasn't been the case to date.