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After half-decade free-agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick recently posted a workout video, Schefty said (citing unnamed sources, for some reason) that Kaepernick is in the best shape of his life and still wants to play. Kaepernick has confirmed the latter part of that report on Sunday, without addressing the former.

"For the past 5 years I've been working out and staying ready in case an opportunity to play presented itself," Kaepernick tweeted. "I'm really grateful to my trainer, who I've been throwing to all this time. But man, do I miss throwing to professional route runners. Who's working?? I will pull up."

Seahawks receiver Tyler Lockett accepted the offer. Which has immediate significance because the Seahawks are still the only team to bring Kaepernick in for a visit since 2017, when he first hit the open market.

Regardless, it seems like the ship has sailed. The fact that the league successfully shunned him for so long makes it easier to not give him a chance now. After all this time, why bother?

Then there's the financial side of it. All he could get at this point is a one-year, minimum-salary deal. As explained on Friday's PFT Live, it can't be easy for Kaepernick to accept that he'd have to reclaim his career by accepting an entry-level position when he's only back at the entry level because of the way his employers wrongfully reacted to the decision to engage in activities that were fully within his legal rights and that did not violate any applicable NFL rules.

Should the Steelers bring him in? When the best current option is Mason Rudolph, hell yes. Will they? When it guarantees an immediate problem with 30 percent or so of the fan base, that's a long shot.

It's not impossible. Maybe it would be a fitting penance for recent messes like the Jon Gruden emails, the ongoing Washington fiasco, the Brian Flores litigation, and more. At this point, however, it seems unlikely that Kaepernick and any team would reach a mutually acceptable agreement.

At no point has a team offered him a one-year, minimum-salary deal, perhaps for fear he'd take it. At no point has Kaepernick said he'd take a one-year, minimum-salary offer, perhaps for fear that a team would extend it. Although Kaepernick seemed to be genuinely interested in continuing his career in 2017 and 2018, the clumsy effort to set up a workout in November 2019 ended with both sides looking bad. With both sides seeming as if they truly didn't want to do business with the other.

Kaepernick wisely is making noise now, because fewer veteran free-agent quarterbacks will be available than expected this year. Still, the fact that he hasn't played in five years makes it easier than ever for a team to avoid someone whose mere presence would create not only a distraction for the football operation but also a potential contraction of profits. Right or wrong (wrong), he continues to be a lightning rod of controversy.

He never should have been blackballed. But he was. And the league eventually settled his collusion claim. He actually could have filed another one, arguing ongoing collusion in retaliation for his initial lawsuit. He didn't.

If he says he still wants to play, I'll accept him at his word. But I also accept the current reality. After fully recovering from the short-term ratings dip of 2016 and 2017, some of which may have indeed been sparked by the anthem protest controversy, the NFL won't want to rile up those who claimed they were swearing off the NFL for good, but who eventually came back around.

It shouldn't be that way. That's the way it is.