Pete Carroll received a call today from a team interested in Colin Kaepernick

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Mar 20, 2019
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Colin Kaepernick remains a free agent. He has not come close to signing since hitting the market in the spring of 2017.

But it feels like change has occurred in the NFL the past three weeks.

So will Kaepernick get a chance now?

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, whose team is the only one even to have Kaepernick visit since the quarterback’s split from the 49ers, said a team called him Thursday asking about Kaepernick. Carroll said he had never previously gotten a call from any other team regarding Kaepernick.

He would not name the team.

“So I know somebody’s interested, and we’ll see what happens with that,” Carroll said on a conference call. “I thought the irony of that was crazy, because I knew I was coming on this press conference and you guys were going to ask me a million questions about this. I got a phone call today for the first time.”

Kaepernick visited the Seahawks in 2017, and the Seahawks set up a workout with Kaepernick in 2018 before cancelling it.

“Kaep called me during the [2016] season before that offseason, and he called out of the blue to ask me for some advice about where he would go next,” Carroll said. “I was flattered that he would even think to call me, because we never talked before other than just, you know, greetings, and so from that point, I was kind of rooting for him and hoping that things would work out. And so, I forgot about it. When it came back around, and we had a chance to visit with him, and it came up, I was thinking this is an incredible football player. Let’s find out if it can possibly fit football-wise and all that. And then also, because he hadn’t visited anywhere yet, maybe this would help him and open up doors for him if our thing didn’t work out. We had great meetings. I don’t know that I’ve ever explained it in as much depth, but we spent half a day together. He spent time with our people throughout the building, and he was awesome. He just backed up even more of what we had seen in the character and in his smarts, in his togetherness and his competitiveness, to the point where it was so obvious that he’s a starter in the NFL.

“He was a dominant figure as a football player, and that’s how we saw him. The fact that it didn’t work out, I figured he was going to wind up starting somewhere for sure, and it just didn’t happen. So, the rest of that story is one that I regret that didn’t happen in some fashion. I wish we would have contributed to it, because again, he deserved to play. I thought at the time and just in our situation as a backup, man, I didn’t feel it was right at that time, so I had to make that football decision. It was about our team and and the situation. We had our starting quarterback and all of that, and it wasn’t going to be the open competitive situation that I’d like to think all of our spots are because Russell is such a dominant figure and all that. That’s what happened. . . . When you look back, I felt like we missed the opportunity. I wish we could have figured that out. Knowing what we know now, I wish we had given him the chance, because I would love to see him play for all those years.”

Carroll didn’t close the door on Kaepernick now, but added the Seahawks like their current quarterback situation with Geno Smith as Russell Wilson‘s backup.
 
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