Colin Kaepernick Works Out With Niners

Added on Jun 29, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

Former University of Nevada quarterback Colin Kaepernick is trying to work his way back into shape after surgery on his lower leg in May, but despite not being 100% he’s already impressed his new teammates with the San Francisco 49ers. Kaepernick participated in an informal ‘minicamp’ on Tuesday and made believers out of his teammates with his strong arm and heady play.

Kaepernick said that he feels as good as new but is waiting for his doctor’s clearance to resume full scale training. Still, he felt good working with his new team:

“Definitely have to get back a little of the timing, get back to the pace of the routes, the timing of certain things. That’s just going to take a little bit of time. For the most part, I felt like I was on time with most of my throws today and felt good out there.”

Left tackle Joe Staley was impressed with Kapernick’s poise:

“He doesn’t have that rookie, deer-in-the-headlights mentality. I think he’s going to be a good quarterback.”

Kaepernick decided to skip a NFLPA rookie symposium in order to work out with his teammates. He thinks that was the right decision:

“We thought it would be best if I was here for this camp, especially being able to fully participate now, just being with my teammates. Also, we had heard that a lot of the rookies weren’t going. We thought this would be a great reason to miss that. Not to say that that wouldn’t be very helpful, but we thought that this would be more important at this time.”

Niners’ veteran QB Alex Smith has been leading the ‘classroom’ portion of the minicamp which includes film work. Receiver Josh Morgan is pleased with how everything is going so far:

“I think everything is going good so far. Camp Alex is a success.”

For now Smith is penciled in as the Niners’ starting quarterback but a good showing by Kaepernick–and a poor showing by Smith in preseason play–could put pressure on the coaching staff to turn over the starting job to the rookie. Of course none of that will happen until the NFL labor dispute is resolved and training camp begins.