10 Best Quarterbacks Hitting the Market This Offseason Part 5

By BetOnline February 4, 2020

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BY ADAM GREENE

This is it. We’ve reached the end of our list and there’s one name that’s yet to turn up. Well, here he is.

9. COLIN KAEPERNICK, UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENT

2019: Did not record a stat or play for an NFL team

At this point it’s probably not realistic to even put Kaepernick on a list like this, but he says he wants to play and is available, so I’ve done it. The guy hasn’t tossed a pass in the league since 2016 and is way more famous for his kneeling protests and social justice work than for his actual quarterbacking ability.

That’s a real issue.

I wrote about this earlier in the season and there’s no reason to rehash it at length. The people invested in Kaepernick due to his social justice work do not have a realistic assessment of his talents as a quarterback. Those that think he’s not good enough to play in the league don’t either. He’s good enough to be a back up. And if you think it’s some kind of slight to rank him under Blaine Gabbert, you need to understand that Gabbert beat Kap out of his job with the San Francisco 49ers twice, under two different coaching regimes, all before he ever took his first knee.

But the question is, would Kaepernick be a back up? I don’t know. It would hurt his brand and his money-making potential outside of football, which has remained high.

Would his fan base accept him being a back up? He’s not the first guy that a vocal fan following with very little football knowledge has kept from holding Surface tablet. It’s why Tim Tebow is on TV and not on an NFL sideline right now and he’d never take a knee outside of a church pew.

Tossing all that aside and just looking at football, he deserves to come in at No. 9 on the available QB list.

Where he should end up: Baltimore Ravens

Kap would be the perfect back up for Lamar Jackson. The offense is something he’d naturally fit into and they could likely still win some games with him at QB. Of course, there’s plenty of reasons that’s not going to happen.

10. BLAKE BORTLES, UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENT

2019: No starts, 50.0 completion percentage, three yards

Three years ago Bortles was a game away from starting a Super Bowl. Last year he set a high sscore on Fruit Ninja on his Microsoft Surface tablet on the Los Angeles Rams sidelines.

Still, Bortles was a first round pick for a reason and gave the Jaguars hope for years he’d put it all together for him. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. As I wrote in the opening preamble to this article series, there are 32 NFL franchises in the league. There are not 32 NFL franchise quarterbacks on the planet. Bortles could be the 32nd best quarterback in the NFL and still look like a pile of dog vomit under center on a Sunday. It’s the nature of the position and the sport.

That being said, he’s got talent. He’s won 24 games in the NFL (and lost 49, you know, but who’s counting… besides the league stat office).

Where he should end up: Los Angeles Rams

Bortles needs to stay right where he is. He never looked comfortable in the preseason in Sean McVay’s offense, but he could be a good back up in the system. And that’s really the best he could hope for at this point. If there’s anything to salvage with him, McVay’s the guy to do it.