As he approaches a third year out of the NFL, Colin Kaepernick could still be one of the sport's better quarterbacks if he was given a chance, according to Cian Fahey.
Kaepernick, who drew international attention across 2016 and 2017 for protesting against police brutality by kneeling during the American national anthem, opted out of his San Francisco contract in 2017 after being told the franchise was planning to cut him.
Despite still being only 32, Kaepernick has not played in the NFL since.
Speaking on The Snap, Off The Ball's American football show, Ger Gilroy argued that Kaepernick would be a valuable back up option for nearly all NFL teams.
"I can't for the life of me think that there isn't one owner ballsy enough that is going to go out and go, 'This is going to be an important piece for us. He isn't going to be our starting QB but we are absolutely going to use him as a runner and an auxiliary quarterback,'" he said.
"We should be talking about him as a top 15, top 16 player..."
Could Colin Kaepernick finally make an NFL return? Cian Fahey lays out what the former 49ers QB still has to offer.
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Admitting that the argument appeared "logical" on the surface, Fahey noted, however, that too many pundits were underrating Kaepernick's ability in an attempt to understand his continued omission from the league.
"What has happened, and this isn't to blame you – it has happened with everyone –, we started to talk about Colin Kaepernick and compare him to the backups of the league and compare him to the Taysom Hills of the team – we should be talking about him as a top 15 top 16 player.
"Arguably, he is better than Matthew Stafford. If you put him in the Tampa Bay offence as a starter they are playoff challenging and a possible contender," Fahey added.
"We have kind of written Colin Kaepernick down over the years because we have had to because of the argument that he is a top quarterback and him being out of the league is very hard for people to understand. But we have written him down by comparing him to backups, we should stop doing that.
"Kaepernick was never a top-three or top-four quarterback in the league but he had developed.
"He was still developing and becoming this all-around quarterback. The sad irony – or just the sad tragic nature of it – he was becoming his best version of himself at the very point the league blackballed him."
