Colin Kaepernick Benched for Blaine Gabbert

Colin Kaepernick will be benched for Blaine Gabbert for this Sunday’s game against Atlanta, according to a report from Bay Area Sports Guy (and also confirmed by NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport). If someone had told us in 2013 that this would happen, we never would’ve believed it. However, this move began to feel inevitable. At 2-6, the 49ers are reeling. Kaepernick seems aloof and the knives have been out in anonymously sourced reports for weeks. When Jim Tomsula didn’t outright commit to him in a press conference today, it really felt like this move, which is more about Kaepernick than Gabbert, who we know is not a long-term answer, was coming.

While it’s not certain, it feels more probable than not that Kaepernick’s time in San Francisco will be coming to an end. It remains to be seen if his career can be salvageable elsewhere, or if his best years happened in his first couple seasons in the league, when he led the 49ers to the Super Bowl once, and nearly again.