NFL rumors: 49ers, seven other teams attend Colin Kaepernick workout

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Colin Kaepernick's venue change for his highly anticipated workout reportedly did not deter the 49ers and seven other NFL teams Saturday.

San Francisco was one of eight teams to attend the quarterback's workout outside of Atlanta, ESPN's Adam Schefter reported Sunday.

NBC Sports Bay Area's Matt Maiocco reported last week that the 49ers would attend. 

The 49ers, of course, were Kaepernick's last NFL team. A 2011 second-round draft pick, Kaepernick started 58 games in six seasons with San Francisco and led the 49ers to back-to-back NFC Championship appearances in 2012 and 2013. Kaepernick quarterbacked the 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII, finishing yards shy of winning the franchise's sixth Super Bowl. 

The 32-year-old has not played since he opted out of his 49ers contract in 2017, shortly after general manager John Lynch and coach Kyle Shanahan joined the organization. Kaepernick began kneeling during the playing of the national anthem in the 2016 season to protest racial injustice and police brutality against African Americans, and the 49ers' new regime informed Kaepernick he would be released if he did not opt-out of his contract. 

Alongside former 49ers teammate Eric Reid, Kaepernick settled a collusion lawsuit with the NFL in February. Kaepernick's representatives claimed they moved Saturday's workout from the Atlanta Falcons facility to a high school outside of Atlanta due to language in the NFL's waiver release which they described as "unusual." Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio obtained the waiver, writing Sunday that the characterization was "an overstatement of its specific contents," but there was "enough language in the waiver to give a prudent, careful lawyer legitimate concern that an aggressive litigator would later argue that signing the document defeats all potential employment claims that Kaepernick could have made."

As for the 49ers, their attendance Saturday likely doesn't mean they're ready to welcome back Kaepernick into the only organization he has ever known. Shanahan told reporters last season that Kaepernick didn't fit his "style of offense" when the 49ers didn't bring Kaepernick in for a workout after Jimmy Garoppolo tore his ACL. 

[RELATED: Kaepernick tells Goodell, NFL owners to stop running from truth]

The reported remaining teams in attendance were a mix of contenders (Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles), bubble teams (Tennessee Titans, Detroit Lions) and also-rans (New York Jets, Washington), each of which has some kind of need at QB. Of course, that hasn't stopped 32 teams from passing up signing Kaepernick since he became a free agent in 2017.

It probably won't stop them in this case, either.  

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