It's called the "Tim Duncan excuse," and Colin Kaepernick is playing it up as much as he can.
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The San Francisco 49ers quarterback earlier this week responded to reports that he was "taken" by the 49ers in signing a cap-friendly deal.
The message: it's all about the team.
"You can skew things any way you want," Kaepernick said, according to USA TODAY Sports. "At the end of the day, a lot of the way the contract is set up is the way every other quarterback's contract is set up. The things that aren't set up like those contracts are because we wanted them that way, so we could sign other players."
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Kaepernick signed a six-year extension that could be worth up to $126 million, but in real-life money, only $13 million is guaranteed and his base salary from 2015-17 is guaranteed only for injury; the 49ers have the ability to release him before April 1 of each year without suffering a heavy cap hit, USA TODAY Sports explained.
As Sports World News previously reported, Tim Duncan took a pay cut of nearly $11.5 million in the summer of 2012 to allow the San Antonio Spurs to put pieces around him to contend for a championship.
It nearly worked for Duncan and the Spurs in 2013. It did work in 2014.
With football being more dependent on salary-cap flexibility, Kaepernick said he was fully aware of what he was signing when the 49ers drew up the contract.
"It was very deliberate by my agents, the organization and myself that we wanted things done this way so we could keep a solid team here," Kaepernick said.
Give Kaepernick credit for being a team player and for having enough faith in himself to earn meet the criteria set forth in the contract to make the big bucks.
Do you believe Colin Kaepernick's deal with the San Francisco 49ers is fair? Comment below or tell us @SportsWN.
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