Former Browns coach Hue Jackson claims he wanted to sign Colin Kaepernick when the quarterback became a free agent in 2017.
Speaking with Tony Rizzo and Aaron Goldhammer on "The Really Big Show" last week, Jackson said he wanted the Browns to sign Kaepernick, but claims the final decision was out of his hands. Kaepernick started his protest in 2016 and opted out of his contract ahead of the 2017 season after the 49ers informed him they planned to cut him.
Since becoming a free agent in 2017, Kaepernick has not received a workout from any NFL team. But if Jackson had it his way, he would have brought the QB in that year.
"I wanted him," Jackson said, via the News-Herald. "It just didn’t work out. Obviously, those things do have to work from a finance, draft, whatever all that is. And that wasn’t my decision."
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Jackson went on to say he also wanted Kaepernick back when he was a rookie, and the coach was on the Raiders.
"I’ve known Colin. When I was with the Raiders, we were going to draft him when I was there," Jackson said. "So, obviously he’d been a really good player in the league. He had tremendous success. He is a guy who has stood for something. I think everybody is seeing exactly where he was coming from. I always thought Colin deserved an opportunity in this league, but he has to want to play. If he really wanted to play, I think he would have a chance again."
Jackson's comments are interesting when you consider what he said at the time. When asked about Kaepernick in March of 2017, Jackson said the Browns hadn't discussed the quarterback despite his own recent claims that he wanted to sign him.
"We haven’t really discussed Colin," Jackson said in 2017. "There’s other players at this point that we’ve had a lot of conversations about to see if we can put them on our team. Not saying it won’t come up later on. You have to exhaust everything. But at this point he hasn’t come up."
He also said in August of 2017 he didn't want to see any players on his team join the protests during the national anthem saying, "I would hope that we don’t have those issues.”
As for the Browns, they obviously did not sign Kaepernick ahead of the 2017 season and famously went 0-16 that year. Cleveland played DeShone Kizer, Kevin Hogan and Cody Kessler in games throughout the season at quarterback instead.
