Yes, some of us predicted it, and now the leaks about Colin Kaepernick’s shaky status with the 49ers have begun in earnest, first by ESPN last week and followed up by Fox on Sunday.
There will be more, I guarantee it, just as I guaranteed long ago that this would be the tenor of national reports if and when the 49ers struggled this season.
We can all guess at where they’re coming from — the same places (or place) they came from last year, when the intent was to set up Jim Harbaugh as the 2014 fall guy.
This is not a surprise. Nothing this season has been much of a surprise. Jed York and Trent Baalke run the franchise a certain way. This is the way. No surprises, if you know how they operate.
The hiring of Jim Tomsula, the assembling of an NFL Europe-level staff, the losses, the talk about locker room issues and now the obvious sotto voce indications from team sources that Kaepernick is the one to blame here.
Zero surprise.
My point today: If you really look at it, piece by piece, it’s amazing how contradictory this all is.
Not to say that Kaepernick’s play doesn’t deserve scrutiny. He has been bad, he has shown no progress from 2013 on, he might not deserve to be the 49ers quarterback, or a starting NFL quarterback, very much longer.
HOWEVER …
You could also add that 49ers management, in its own secretive way, has acted about as frantically and unworthily as anything Kaepernick has done on the field or — if you hear the whispers — in his dealings with teammates.
Just a few points of glaring contradiction:
Under any kind of inspection you could see it wasn’t any kind of true long-term commitment to him; it was a series of one-year deals that was set up for Kaepernick to be re-evaluated constantly.
York and Baalke hired Tomsula, a defensive line coach, to replace Harbaugh, and they promoted Geep Chryst, who had been Kaepernick’s quarterbacks coach, as the offensive coordinator. And hired a guy who was doing a radio talk-show as Kaepernick’s quarterbacks coach.
Not exactly a great new influx of offensive coaching brilliance there.
If York and Baalke had this concern, why did they trumpet the new contract AND also why didn’t they draft a quarterback in the last two years, when Baalke, as usual, had assembled so many picks to use?
The 49ers signed Torrey Smith, a receiver who flourishes in a drop-back offense, and did various confusing things involving the offensive plan that I’m sure confused Kaepernick, too.
Oh, and Tomsula said the 49ers aren’t a drop-back passing team. I still don’t know what they actually think they are. I know they’re the lowest scoring team in the league so far, at 14.7 per game, and nobody else is lower than 18 per game.
These are just a few of the contradictions. Again, I’m not saying Kaepernick is a great quarterback who was ruined by 49ers leaks and politics. He’s showing weakness, and he’s certainly not rising above everything around him.
But the 49ers have done nothing to support him and in fact fired the guy who picked him and supported him most and then set up a situation where it was obvious that Kaepernick was going to be the main new scapegoat.
I have no idea what 49ers management gains by this, but I didn’t know what they thought they gained by setting up Harbaugh all last season.
There’s just an abiding desire by 49ers management to set up excuses — and fall guys — before they ever need them, instead of just letting the results speak for themselves.
And now it’s all focused on Kaepernick, in all the 49ers’ grand, bumbling and contradictory ways.
Read Tim Kawakami’s Talking Points blog at . Contact him at or 408-920-5442.
Sunday’s game
49ers (2-5) at St. Louis (3-3),
10 a.m. Fox
