Denver Broncos: Why the team should sign Colin Kaepernick

The Denver Broncos should sign Colin Kaepernick for the 2020 season.

Drew Lock is the present and hopefully the future of the Denver Broncos at the quarterback position. That doesn’t mean the team should avoid having a deep quarterback room, including the option of signing free agent Colin Kaepernick.

The Broncos have been connected to Kaepernick for quite some time.

After Super Bowl 50, the Broncos’ top option to replace Peyton Manning was to trade for Kaepernick, who had helped take the 49ers to the Super Bowl just a couple of years prior.

The Broncos and 49ers had agreed to the compensation details of the trade involving Kaepernick, and at the time, the Broncos were the only team legitimately vying for him. Kaepernick had multiple meetings with John Elway in person to try and hash out a new contract, but the two sides could not come to an agreement.

The Broncos were essentially trying to get Kaepernick to take a significant pay cut because of their own cap situation, but coming off of a Super Bowl victory and with such a solid core roster around him, it made sense that Kaepernick might eventually get his pay increase back if he were to successfully rehab his career with the reigning champion Broncos.

At least, it made sense to many in Broncos Country (myself included) who desperately wanted to see it happen.

After all of the cool photoshopped images of Kaepernick in a Broncos uniform, nothing happened. The Broncos drafted Paxton Lynch in the first round of the 2016 NFL Draft and Kaepernick stayed with the 49ers, agreeing to a restructured deal while starting 11 of 12 games played.

That was also Kaepernick’s last season in the NFL in which he started to kneel during the National Anthem, protesting against police brutality and advocating for social justice.

Since that season, Kaepernick has been essentially blackballed by the entire NFL. Some will say that Kaepernick was not employed by the NFL due to his regression in play, but there are hundreds of other quarterbacks who are way worse than what Kaepernick showed his last time on an NFL field who have still been employed by the league since 2016.

The events that have unfolded in 2020 have resulted in many drastic changes around the country and around the world, but something not many saw coming was the NFL advocating for Kaepernick to be signed, specifically league commissioner Roger Goodell.

With everything that has gone on so far in 2020, it is expected that thousands of NFL employees  (meaning players and coaches) are going to use their platform to kneel and peacefully protest. The even playing field across the league has really paved the way for teams to sign Kaepernick even though that day is past due. At the very least, he is good enough and has a good enough resumé to be a team’s backup or third option, which leads us to the Denver Broncos again.

Should the Broncos sign Kaepernick? Considering the fact that he’s not going to be the ‘distraction’ he was once thought to be with the majority of the NFL joining alongside him this season, there are fewer reasons for the Broncos or any team to leave him sitting in free agency.

The Broncos are out on the forefront of change in the NFL these days. They reached a groundbreaking deal with FanDuel and Betfred as the first NFL team to officially partner with a sports gambling company.

https://twitter.com/Broncos/status/1272582312237191170

The Broncos were the first NFL team to organize a city-wide peaceful protest this offseason.

The team was also recognized by ESPN for its off-field efforts as a finalist for the ESPN Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year.

https://twitter.com/Broncos/status/1263138037581713408

The Broncos have also done things like using virtual reality to help rookie Drew Lock rehab from his thumb injury last year and get him ready for regular-season action.

There is no doubt the Broncos are out on the forefront of a number of things compared to other NFL teams, and being the team to sign Kaepernick would sort of fit in with a lot of that.

I want to take a look at some football reasons the Broncos should consider signing Kaepernick as well, and reasons why it might not be so surprising if they’re the team he ends up on in 2020.

For the record, I do think he’s going to be on some NFL club by the time the 2020 season begins.

Here’s why it should be the Denver Broncos.