CBS’ Bill Cowher Questions Whether Kaepernick Is Serious About Returning to the NFL

CBS analyst Bill Cowher has some doubt about whether former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is serious about returning to the game.

After spending an entire season protesting the national anthem, the former San Francisco 49er opted out of his contract and announced his free agency. However, Kaepernick has not signed on with another club.

Though, Cowher says he doesn’t see any evidence that Kaepernick has done anything to convince prospective employers that he’s serious about returning to the gridiron.

Cowher, a former coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers, recently said that he doesn’t think Kaepernick is trying to “prove himself” to the league.

“I’ve not heard from Colin Kaepernick this whole offseason in terms of coming out at this point to me,” Cowher said. “If I’m Colin Kaepernick I have to prove myself. I would say, ‘I would love the opportunity to show that I am a championship-winning quarterback again, and I understand that I am not going to be handed anything and that I would love the opportunity to come back.’ If he said that it would open the ears of a lot of teams.”

The former coach went on to say that he would hire Kaepernick if he thought the player fit a needed role, but that Kaepernick also needs to show he’s ready to come back.

“But you don’t hear him saying that, so you just have to wonder, ‘Does he really want to come back?'” Cowher concluded. “He has a lot of people speaking for him, but people need to hear it from him, not from the other people around him.”

Former Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo added that Kaepernick is good enough to be an NFL player, and that if any team thought he would help them win, he’d already be on a team. Yet, Romo also brought up the one worry that has been bandied about as a reason Kaepernick is still on the sidelines: that he is too much of a distraction.

“If you do something that is in a position for people to talk about, like he did, that’s a whole other discussion,” Romo told Sporting News. “…If they thought he could bring them a championship they would overlook it, but since he’s not being evaluated in a position to be that good for the most part, now all of a sudden you’re looking at a backup quarterback, or maybe a starter, who brings a distraction, and teams aren’t willing to do that.”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.