Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, recently started contract talks with his team.
Reports this week indicate that talks with Kaepernick, 26, are off to a good start.
San Jose Mercury News columnist Tim Kawakami, who is familiar with the talks, says that “there are many miles to go on this, of course. Any Kaepernick deal will be very large and any agreement involves many different leaps of faith.”
He adds: “How long a deal will it be? At what salary? How much guaranteed? This could break off on any of those points, at any time, and remember Kaepernick is still under contract for the 2014 season so there’s no great imperative… except to get this settled here and now. (And to get Kaepernick paid at a proper level.)”
Kaepernick is slated to enter the final year of his rookie contract, signed after he was drafted in the second round in 2011. He will earn nearly $974,000 for the next season.
In the 2012-2013 season, he was excellent in leading the 49ers to the Super Bowl, taking over from Alex Smith when he went down with injury. However, he was more inconsistent during the 2013-2014 season, but still helped his team get within striking distance of going to Super Bowl 48, losing against the Seattle Seahawks during the NFC Championship game last month.
“But for now, both sides seem to have entered into this optimistically and over the weekend provided each other good reasons to keep going on it,” Kawakami wrote.
Kawakami says that Kaepernick could ask for as much as $20 million per season.
General manager Trent Baalke told CBS that news about the deal won’t be revealed any time soon.
“Where we are with any of this stuff really stays in-house, as always,” Baalke said. “We’re working on a lot of different things right now with our own players. And that’s first and foremost.”
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