John Lynch: Colin Kaepernick would have been cut if he hadn't opted out of 49ers contract

While there is plenty of speculation that Colin Kaepernick hasn't been signed by an NFL team because of his protests against police brutality and racial injustice by not standing for the national anthem last season, that's not the reason he isn't with the San Francisco 49ers, according to general manager John Lynch.

Kaepernick opted out of his contract, but only after he was told by the 49ers that he was going to be cut because he didn't fit the system the team plans to run under new coach Kyle Shanahan.

Speaking to Pro Football Talk, Lynch explained the team's position: “Yes (they were planning to cut Kaepernick), and we had that conversation with him. So I don’t want to characterize it as he made a decision to leave here. We both sat down and under that current construct of his deal, it was a big number. Kyle had a vision for what he wanted to do, and one thing I think Kyle was very clear and I think Colin appreciated, is that Kyle has an idea of how he’d play with Colin Kaepernick. But he preferred to run the exact offense that he ran in Atlanta last year that was record-breaking in this league. And if you change it for the quarterback, you change it for everybody on that offense. So he had a great discussion that I think gave Colin clarity, so we moved on.

"Brian Hoyer was one of the guys we pursued. Once we pursued him, we didn’t see Kaep as a backup that would really fit in that scheme and we communicated that to him. So I think we’ve been very up front with it. But I think that is a fair characterization. Yes, he was not going to be here under the construct of his contract. We gave him the option, ‘You can opt out, we can release you, whatever.’ And he chose to opt out, but that was just a formality.”

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Lynch said that in the discussions with Kaepernick, he knows the quarterback still wants to play.

"The one thing that I knew from sitting with Colin when we had our opportunity to sit down and he ultimately opted out, we had a great discussion that stuck out with me that this is a guy who is really interested in getting back in this league and playing at the highest level," Lynch said. "And I’ve talked to him since, and that very much is the case.”

The full interview with Lynch will be on the PFT Live podcast, expected to be out later this week.

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