Niners QB Colin Kaepernick (above) was something less than loquacious when fielding questions from Bay Area scribes earlier this week, and the tension from that exchange became a major talking point in SF head coach Jim Harbaugh’s media session earlier toda prior to Sunday’s short trip to Oakland. From the Press-Democrat.com :
What kind of sense did you get from your players this week in terms of how they’re looking to bounce back after Seattle?
“Determined. Determined to do well. I saw that there was quite a bit of sport made of [QB] Colin Kaepernick. People were even tallying his responses. It’s sad really because you don’t know him. And, he’s a determined person. He’s a spiritual person. He’s a very hard worker and he wants to do well and works extremely hard at it. And, you get the honest person when you deal with him. If he’s not chatty, he’s not going to be chatty. He’s single minded when he’s playing the game of football and preparing for the game and I appreciate that. I appreciate that he is who he is. I’m around him every day. He is his own person too.”
You bring that up. A lot of us who don’t know him nearly as well as you do didn’t know what to make of that – what message was he was trying to get across or why he responded the way he did on Wednesday. Can you shed a little bit of light on that of how you read it?
“He’s very professional. He always stands up. He never dodges or deflects criticism. He takes accountability. He’s honest. He tells the truth. The questions you were asking, he was telling the truth. You’re not going to just be at somebody’s beck and call or bidding. He’s going to act the way he acts. He’s his own person. I appreciate the honesty. That’s who he is. His jaw is set. He’s a team player all the way. That’s what he’s doing. He’s working. He is working. He loves this time of year, loves this kind of football, these big games. And I appreciate that. It’s all a person can do. They do their best. If that’s not appreciated then you do your best anyway. That’s who he is. That’s what he does.”
Just one more on that, right before you came in here we were just watching a national TV show where they were talking about that’s not the way, a quote, unquote, “the face of the franchise should be, the image he should give off”. What would you say to that, to people who would think that a face of a franchise quarterback should be a little bit more accommodating?
“Face of the franchise quarterback should be a great leader by example, the way he works. A team player all the way. What’s in his heart is about the team. It’s not about himself. And then, you get the raw honesty. He is telling you. You ask him what his mindset is, it’s to work. That’s his approach.”
Are you saying that if he were to go up there and be really wordy and eloquent, he would be someone other than who he really is? He wouldn’t be true to himself?
“Wouldn’t anybody be? If you want someone to be wordy and that’s not who they are, that’d be phony to be that. That’d be passive aggressive. That’d be being somebody that he’s not. The jaw is set. He wants to win this football game. He’s going to work his way to get there.”