The support for Colin Kaepernick is gone, in more ways than one, and that's why a divorce is the only settlement that can appease both parties.
After 49ers coach Jim Tomsula refused publicly to announce he was benching the struggling quarterback earlier Monday during his weekly news conference, the team clumsily let word leak out late in the day that Blaine Gabbert will start Sunday against the Falcons. San Francisco can't even get Kaepernick's benching right.
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"We're evaluating everything right now," Tomsula would only say Monday in his weekly media conference on the subject of his starting quarterback next week, according to ESPN. "We're in the middle of it right now. I don't have any comments on any position on our field right now. We are evaluating everybody."
Before the start of the 2014 season, Kaepernick signed a six-year extension worth $114 million -- making his total deal a seven-year, $126 million contract -- according to sportrac.com. The catch is that if the 49ers release the star-crossed quarterback before April 1, 2016, the balance they'll owe him on the remainder of his deal is $0.
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San Francisco management decided to make a change of the man who handed the reins to Kaepernick in 2012 -- coach Jim Harbaugh. That was part of depletion of talent the San Jose Mercury News blames squarely on general manager Trent Baalke.
"That is because Baalke let some of the wrong players walk in free agency, and several of the free agents he brought in have been terrible," the paper reported. "But most damaging to the franchise has been three years of subpar drafting.
"Baalke killed it in 2010 and 2011. Those two drafts netted Anthony Davis, Mike Iupati, NaVorro Bowman, Anthony Dixon, Aldon Smith, Kaepernick, Chris Culliver, Kendall Hunter, Daniel Kilgore and Bruce Miller. Since then, he has missed much more often. That, more than Kaepernick, is the reason the 49ers are where they are."
The dysfunctional front office signed aging and injury-prone running back Reggie Bush, whose season is over with a torn MCL, they signed deep threat Torrey Smith when Kaepernick's deep passing game was a question mark, and they the signed Australian rugby player Jarryd Hayne, only to release him this week. And for good measure, the Niners traded tight end Vernon Davis to the Denver Broncos, as NFL.com reports.
If the franchise is starting over, why keep a confidence-shaken quarterback that will eat up $16.75 million in cap space in 2016? The only way the 49ers would owe Kaepernick any money is if he is injured.
San Francisco has way too many holes to commit that much money to a player that has given no indicated that he can carry a franchise.
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