Colin Kaepernick refuses to give up on his football career.
Although it has been more than six years since he last appeared in an NFL game, the outspoken former 49ers quarterback is still training 5-6 times a week in hopes of getting back on the gridiron, he said in an interview with Sports Illustrated.
“I’m going to keep pushing,” Kaepernick told the outlet. “I’m going to keep fighting for it because I know I can step on the field and play. Every workout, every opportunity I’ve had to show that, the feedback has always been positive.
“Everything from, ‘He’s still an elite player,’ to ‘The workout was great; it was better than expected.’”
Kaepernick, 35, worked out with the Raiders in May 2022 but has still yet to put on an NFL uniform since he last played on Jan. 1, 2017, for the 49ers.
Despite the long absence, he claimed he still has what it takes to be an NFL quarterback.
“When I had my workout with the Raiders last year, even training with guys, there’s a decent amount of people who may have forgotten what I was capable of doing on the field, so any chance to be able to remind people of what I can do out there, I look forward to and embrace, and I look forward to the day that I get to step on the field and show people what I can do,” Kaepernick said.
During the interview, Kaepernick, who has long said he was blackballed from the league, blamed “political bias” for why the Raiders and other teams haven’t given him a shot over the last six-plus years.
Kaepernick became a divisive figure in the U.S. — and football world — after he continually kneeled during the national anthem to protest racial injustice in 2016.
“I’ve heard a lot of excuses over the years but most of the time it ends up, ‘Oh, we’re going to see how the guys that we have do,’” Kaepernick said. “With the Raiders’ situation last year, that was [Jarrett] Stidham and Nick Mullens, which to me, you just compare résumés and capabilities, on top of the workout and the feedback, it’s like, ‘OK, cool.’
“Obviously, there’s something else within this decision,” he continued. “To me, that’s typically what it ends up being, or has been for the last seven years. So, I just want the opportunity to come in, show what I can do on the field.
“Judge me based upon that, not the political bias that you have.”
He settled with the NFL in 2019 after filing a grievance in 2017 accusing NFL owners of colluding to keep him out of the league.
Kaepernick was a second-round pick by the 49ers in 2011 and led the team to the Super Bowl during the 2012 season.
In his career, he completed 59.8 percent of his passes with 72 touchdowns and 30 interceptions while adding 2,300 yards on the ground.