Colin Kaepernick won’t be on the LA Chargers this year, says head coach Jim Harbaugh

By Amy Woodyatt and Ben Church, CNN

(CNN) — Colin Kaepernick won’t be joining the Los Angeles Chargers as a coach or a player this season, according to head coach Jim Harbaugh.

“I love Colin,” Harbaugh told reporters Thursday. “But he’s not going to be on my coaching staff this year, and he’s not going to be on the roster either.”

This comes after it emerged earlier that Harbaugh was open to the possibility of Kaepernick joining the team in a coaching capacity one day.

“If that was ever the path he was to take, I think that would be tremendous,” Harbaugh told USA TODAY after a training camp practice last week. “He’d be a tremendous coach, if that’s the path he chose.”

Harbaugh said he had contacted his former quarterback earlier in the year but that nothing had yet come of the conversation.

On Thursday, Harbaugh said his interest in having Kaepernick on the coaching staff mirrors the opportunity that he himself was offered by late Raiders owner Al Davis.

“Al Davis saw something in me that made him think I would be a great coach,” Harbaugh said. “I see those qualities in Colin.”

Kaepernick, for his part, recently told Sky Sports that he still holds hopes of playing in the NFL again.

“We’re still training, still pushing,” Kaepernick told Sky Sports News earlier this month. “So hopefully – we’ve just got to get one of these team owners to open up.

Kaepernick has not played in the NFL since 2016, after he sparked controversy by sitting, then kneeling, during the National Anthem before several games to protest the police shootings of Black men and other social injustices faced by the Black community.

In March 2017, he opted out of his 49ers contract and became a free agent. No NFL team signed him. In October 2017, he filed his grievance case against the NFL, alleging that teams were colluding to deny him a job.

The quarterback settled a collusion grievance case against the NFL, along with his former 49ers teammate Eric Reid, in 2019.

Kaepernick and Harbaugh had previously enjoyed success during their time with the 49ers together, reaching the Super Bowl in 2013 – narrowly losing out to the Baltimore Ravens.

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