Colin Kaepernick is still not giving up on his dream to make it back into the National Football League.
The free agent quarterback, who hasn’t played since the end of the 2016 season, says he still wakes up at 5 AM and training 5 or 6 days a week in case a team finally calls him for his second shot.
“Absolutely. I am still up at 5 a.m. training five, six days a week making sure I’m prepared to take a team to a Super Bowl again. That’s not something I will ever let go of, regardless of the actions of 32 teams and their partners to deny me employment. The same way I was persistent in high school is the same way I’m gonna be persistent here.”
The 33-year-old played in the Super Bowl as a member of the 49ers, but the team lost to the Baltimore Ravens. His last regular season game came on Jan. 1, 2017 in a loss to the Seahawks.
Kaepernick made it clear he still believes teams are avoiding him over suing the league as well as his protest during the National League.
“You’re gonna have to continue to deny me and do so in a public way,” Kaepernick said. “And you’re gonna expose yourself by that, but it won’t be because I’m not ready or not prepared.”
He added that waiting on the NFL wasn’t going to prevent him from pursuing other opportunities. Kaepernick said he would continue to train for the NFL while acting and producing. “We are not one dimensional,” he told Ebony.
Kaepernick has been out of the game for so long that it would take a lot for an NFL team to reach out, especially since he plays the most important position in football. His time away from the game hurts and so does increased media attention and scrutiny, and some teams are unwilling to take that on for a guy who would definitely be a back-up or even 3rd-string.
