Los Angeles Chargers Coach Jim Harbaugh Provided an update after the proposal Colin Kaepernick Coaching role for the team.
“I like Colin, but he’s not going to be on my coaching staff this year, he’s not going to be on the roster,” the 60-year-old Harbaugh told reporters Thursday, Aug. 15.
Harbaugh was hired as the Chargers’ head coach in January, and he said: USA Today He said he had offered the coaching job to the 36-year-old Kaepernick earlier this month.
Kaepernick has not contacted Harbaugh again about coaching opportunities, and the two last spoke on the phone in February, Harbaugh told the outlet.
The respected coach stands by his decision to reach out to Kaepernick and believes coaching could one day be a good option for the former quarterback.
“If that’s the path he had to take, I think it would have been really great,” Harbaugh said. USA Today. “If he chooses that path, he will be a tremendous coach.”
The two have a long history together, with Harbaugh coaching Kaepernick from 2011 to 2014, when Kaepernick played for the San Francisco 49ers. Their team reached the Super Bowl in 2012, and Kaepernick threw a career-high 21 touchdown passes in the 2013 season.
Harbaugh coached at the University of Michigan from 2015 to 2023, and he and Kaepernick have maintained a close relationship over the years. Harbaugh named Kaepernick an honorary captain for the 2022 Michigan spring game, and has publicly supported Kaepernick’s fight for social justice for years.
Kaepernick has expressed his desire to play another season in the NFL, telling Sky Sports earlier this month that he was “still training” and “working” for the opportunity.
“All we need is for one of the team owners to open their heart,” he said.
Kaepernick has not played since the 2016 season, when he began kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial inequality and police brutality. He became a free agent after the season, and in October 2017, he and his 49ers teammates Eric Reed The complaint alleged that the team’s owners conspired to drive them out of the league for protesting. (Reed, who played safety, signed with the team during the 2018 offseason and was released by the Carolina Panthers in 2020.)
They reached a legal settlement with the NFL in 2019. Details of the settlement were not publicly disclosed, but many outlets reported that the NFL paid less than $10 million in the settlement.