2024-08-14 11:05:01
Colin Kaepernick still wants to play football in the NFL…and in the Olympics?
The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, who last played in the NFL in 2016, was asked about the possibility of playing flag football at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“Hopefully we’ll be out there,” Kaepernick told Sky Sports. “We’re gonna work on some things, see if we can make it in there. But we’d love to be out there.”
The non-contact sport, in which a stop is made by ripping off one of the flags attached to a belt on a ball carrier’s waist, will make its Olympic debut in 2028. Some NFL players have already expressed interest in playing, and the league reportedly is encouraging active players to compete.
The 36-year-old Kaepernick has not played in the NFL since parting ways with the 49ers in 2016 after he began kneeling during the playing of the national anthem in protest of racial injustice.
“We’re still training, still pushing,” he told Sky Sports. “So, hopefully. We just gotta get one of these team owners to open up.”
Kaepernick, drafted by San Francisco in the second round of the 2011 draft, spent his entire six-year NFL career with the 49ers. He led the 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII, where they lost to the Baltimore Ravens by a score of 34-31.
Kaepernick has a 28-30 career record in the regular season with 12,271 passing yards, 72 passing touchdowns, 30 interceptions, a 59.8 completion percentage and 13 rushing touchdowns.
The 49ers, in Kaepernick’s final season with the team in 2016, went just 1-10 in his starts.
He has been unable to garner much interest around the league since, despite some high-profile workouts and open auditions.
He met with the Seattle Seahawks in 2017 and worked out for the Las Vegas Raiders in 2022, but both teams declined to sign him. Kaepernick wrote a letter to the New York Jets last season requesting to join the practice squad after their recently-acquired quarterback Aaron Rodgers suffered a season-ending Achilles injury on the team’s first offensive possession.
“I mean, it’s something I’ve trained my whole life for,” Kaepernick told Sky Sports when asked what it would mean to return to the NFL. “So, to be able to step back on the field, I think that would be a major moment, a major accomplishment for me. Also, I think it’s something that I can bring a lot to a team and help them win a championship.”
