The Sports Media Channels Kaepernick by Projecting Where He’d Rank if He Were in the League Today

The sports media has become so lonely and despondent without Colin Kaepernick in the NFL, that they have actually resorted to channeling him.

An article in USA Today endeavored to find out how Kaepernick would stack-up against the other quarterbacks in the league through the first two weeks of the season, if he were actually on a roster. To pull off this laughably insane trickery, the article cites Kaepernick’s numbers from 2016. By using those numbers as a starting point, then averaging them out and comparing them against the field, one establishes “The Kaepernick Line.”

Here’s how it works:

The Kaepernick Line, though far from scientific, yields a marker in the sand for merit-based arguments. His numbers from last year in five key categories are compared against the field of 2017 starting quarterbacks. His hypothetical rank is then averaged across the line. For instance, if Kaepernick’s replicated production put him 30th in three categories and 20th in one and 15th in another, the line would be 20 (30+30+30+20+15= 125, divided by 5 = 20).

Here is that production:

2016

Rating: 90.7

QBR: 55.2

Adjusted Net Yards/Attempt: 5.92

Team Points/Game in Starts: 18.66

Points Added: -0.7

These 2016 numbers, then get measured against other starters in 2017 to produce a hypothetical ranking for Kaepernick. Here’s how those numbers played out:

Through two games, here’s where he would rank in each:

Colin Kaepernick’s Rank in 2017

Rating: 15th

QBR: 15th

Adjusted Net Yards/Attempt: 16th

Team Points/Game in Start: 21st

Points Added: 19th

The first Kaepernick Line checks in at 17.2.

The article then goes on to highlight a list of 2017 quarterbacks who are all under-performing 2016 Colin Kaepernick: “It is worth nothing that Cam Newton, Mike Glennon, Russell Wilson, Case Keenum, Jacoby Brissett, Brian Hoyer, DeShone Kizer, and Andy Dalton rank lower in ALL of the above categories than 2016 Kaepernick playing in San Francisco.”

Now, in fairness, the author points out that two weeks is way too small a body of work to accurately measure how Kaepernick would rank in the league. What he should have also gone on to point out, is how insane this entire idea is.

First of all, hypothetically, if Kaepernick were still on the 49ers he would have a new head coach and an entirely new offensive system. Kyle Shanahan replaced Chip Kelly, and the two are nothing alike in how they view offensive football. So who knows how Kaepernick would have played in that system? Even if Kaepernick started for a team other than the 49ers he still would have been in a new system, making it impossible to project how he’d perform.

If Kaepernick had ended up with the Ravens or Seahawks, the other two teams most mentioned as possible landing spots for him, he would have been a backup and not produced any stats at all.

Speaking of backups, look at some of the names on the list of quarterbacks under-performing Kaepernick’s numbers from last year: Jacoby Brissett, Mike Glennon, and Case Keenum. All of those players are basically career backups thrust into starting duty by circumstance. Hoyer is essentially the in the same spot, though he’s been a starter for longer.

DeShone Kizer is a rookie playing for the awful Browns, and Andy Dalton plays behind arguably the worst offensive line in the NFL. Russell Wilson’s offensive line isn’t a whole lot better than Dalton’s, and if Kaepernick played the defenses Cam Newton played in the first two weeks his numbers would be subterranean as well.

The toughest thing to do when analyzing the NFL, is to project. The smartest football minds in the world do it every single day, and manage to screw it up royally. Even when they’re dealing with known quantities who aren’t switching systems. Trying to project a complete wild-card like Kaepernick, with all the political distractions and wildly inconsistent play, is beyond ridiculous. The 49ers already tried to project Kaepernick once, they projected that he would maintain the relatively high-level of play that he displayed when he became a starter. Those projections turned out to be wrong, and that was an organization that knew Kaepernick better than anyone.

The sports media needs to accept that Kaepernick isn’t in the league, and is not likely to ever be again. Raising Kaepernick’s ghost only makes this even more sad.