49ers bench Colin Kaepernick, will turn to Blaine Gabbert at QB

When you get benched for Blaine Gabbert, things aren’t going well. That’s where Colin Kaepernick finds himself.

It’s amazing that Kaepernick was one goal-to-go situation from being a Super Bowl championship quarterback. Then he almost helped the San Francisco 49ers back to the Super Bowl the next season, coming up just short in a loss to the Seattle Seahawks at the end of the 2013 season. The past two seasons have been a nightmare and Kaepernick’s steep decline was complete on Monday, when the 49ers made the move to bench Kaepernick and go to Gabbert. Multiple outlets reported the news on Monday night (Kyle McLorg of BayAreaSportsGuy.com was the first to report it).

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The 49ers have gone two straight games without a touchdown. Kaepernick has been bad most of the season, missing easy throws and seemingly losing any confidence he had built up during his first two seasons as the 49ers starter, when they were one of the best teams in football. Kaepernick had a career-worst 78.8 rating this season. Gabbert, a failed first-round pick with the Jacksonville Jaguars, has had a terrible NFL career, but the 49ers couldn’t have figured there was much to lose. Perhaps Gabbert can at least run the basic plays that the 49ers need to execute to be a competent offense.

The question now is what becomes of Kaepernick beyond this season. As Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson pointed out earlier this season, the 49ers gave Kaepernick a contract that had a total value of $126 million but they could get out of easily if he regressed badly. And he has. Kaepernick is due $16.7 million next season and $19.3 million the season after that. If he’s cut before April 1, the 49ers could cut him at a salary-cap savings of $6.9 million next year. And if you’ve been benched for Gabbert, the odds of a team paying you $16.7 million next season don’t appear to be that great.

Where Kaepernick’s once-promising career goes from here will play out over time. But the 2-6 49ers felt they had no choice but to bench him now for Gabbert. What an incredibly fast and harsh fall from grace.

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