Colin Kaepernick can still hurl it.
The embattled 34-year-old quarterback, who last played in the NFL in 2017, hosted a throwing exhibition for scouts and team personnel attending Michigan Football’s spring game at the invitation of coach Jim Harbaugh.
Kaepernick threw to undrafted and free agent receivers and looked good, including a deep bomb that found his receiver’s hands on his last pass.
Michigan head football coach Jim Harbaugh watches as former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick throws during halftime of the Wolverines’ spring game.AP
“That I can help make you a better team,” Kaepernick told WXYZ Detroit when asked what his message to NFL teams was. “I can help you win games. I know the situation right now probably won’t allow me to come in and take a starting role. But I know that I can work my way up there and show it very quickly.
“To the teams that have questions, more than anything I would say I’d love to come to a practice, I’d love to sit down with you and have the conversation about how I can help you be a better team . ”
Kaepernick, formerly a starter who led the 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII, has been out of the league for five years and is widely believed to have been blacked out after being criticized for kneeling during the national anthem to protest to protest racial injustice.
Though other players, like safety Eric Reid, also knelt, Kaepernick was the face of the movement, prompting then-President Donald Trump to dub him a “son of a bitch.”
Colin KaepernickUSA TODAY Sports
Harbaugh, who coached Kaepernick in San Francisco, has supported him in the past. By letting him pitch at halftime in the spring game, Harbaugh essentially gave the Boy Scouts an excuse to see Kaepernick live. The exhibit was sponsored by Wolverines Against Racism, a student organization at the university.
It seems unlikely at this point that Kaepernick will be signed by any side but he has made it clear that he is ready, willing and able to play professional football.