During Colin Kaepernick’s tenure as the 49ers’ starting quarterback, he turned in his best performances against the Packers. He twice led San Francisco to playoff victories against Green Bay, and one of those games was the single greatest rushing performance by a quarterback in NFL history. He also had a 400-yard passing game in a regular-season win over the Packers.
So when the 49ers’ website published a photo gallery of their top moments against the Packers, you’d expect Kaepernick to be prominently featured. Instead, he’s been erased from history.
The 49ers published 48 pictures of what they described as “top moments between the 49ers and Packers since 1950,” and zero of those pictures were of Kaepernick. The pictures range from a black-and-white photo of Roland Lakes sacking Bart Starr in 1967 to Bradley Pinion punting during the 49ers’ game against the Packers in 2015. But no Kaepernick.
Were those two great playoff wins simply forgotten? No. There are pictures from those games, but they all focus on other 49ers. If you want to see Kaepernick, who was the best player on the field, you’ll have to squint while looking at the picture of Michael Crabtree catching a touchdown pass. In the background, out of focus, is Kaepernick, who threw that touchdown pass, but isn’t mentioned in the caption.
After the NFL’s 32 teams decided not to offer Kaepernick a job, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the one team he played for would like to pretend he never existed. But attempting to send Kaepernick down the memory hole is wrong.