Alright, let me tell you what I was poking around with the other day. The topic of Colin Kaepernick popped into my head again, specifically thinking about his whole situation after leaving the 49ers. And somehow, the Cincinnati Bengals came up in my thoughts.
So, I started digging. My first step was just basic searching online. I typed in stuff like “cincinnati bengals colin kaepernick workout” or “bengals interest kaepernick”. You know, trying to see if there was ever any real smoke there. I remember back when Kaepernick was looking for a team, lots of names got thrown around whenever a team’s QB situation looked shaky.
Spent a fair bit of time scrolling through old articles, fan forums, discussion threads from maybe 2017, 2018, around that time. What I found was mostly just talk. Lots of speculation, people asking “Why not give Kaepernick a look?” especially if the Bengals were struggling or had injuries.
Here’s basically what I gathered from my digging:
- There wasn’t any official report of the Bengals bringing him in for a workout.
- No credible source seemed to indicate serious interest from the Bengals’ front office.
- Most of the connection seemed purely hypothetical, driven by fans or media suggesting potential landing spots.
I even remember chatting with a buddy of mine who follows the Bengals pretty closely. Asked him if he recalled any serious buzz about Kaepernick and the Bengals back then. He basically said the same thing – it was chatter, but never seemed like something the team itself was actually considering. The whole kneeling thing just made him radioactive for most teams’ owners, it seemed, regardless of the team’s actual needs.
So, after spending maybe an hour or so looking into it, my conclusion was pretty simple. The whole Cincinnati Bengals Colin Kaepernick thing? It was mostly just noise, a “what if” scenario that never really got off the ground. It wasn’t really about Cincinnati specifically, more about the league-wide situation surrounding Kaepernick at the time. They went with other options, like Jeff Driskel and eventually drafting Joe Burrow later on, of course. Just another one of those sports what-ifs you stumble across sometimes. Interesting to look back on, though.
