His Year: Colin Kaepernick 2012

In the wake of his political statements, Colin Kaepernick as a football player has been forgotten. No more. Let's talk about Colin's 2012.

I'm going to make a deal with you. I'm about to talk about a very controversial human. I've avoided it for a long time now. In fact, I've avoided it for so long that people have started to notice that I'm avoiding it. It's beginning to stretch the credibility of a series based around one year wonders that it doesn't include this season, so my hand has been forced. I'm going to talk about Colin Kaepernick in 2012.

In all honesty, this is a great story for me to tell. In the wake of everything that's happened since 2012, this season and the greatness of it has been nearly entirely forgotten. Additionally, it features yet another player getting his first chance to start and making the most of it, the ultimate His Year trope.

On the field, this story is right in my wheelhouse, but I have no interest in getting political. In my Michael Vick article, I expressed my opinion that American society is not fond of successful young black males, and so they get excessively punished for things. My opinion on that matter remains the same. You needn't be a Rhodes scholar to apply the same logic to the Colin Kaepernick situation, and that's all you're going to get out of me.

From here on the agreement is this: I'm going to ignore all of the riff raff that will come, and exclusively focus on the on-field play of Colin Kaepernick. If you can take that deal, I promise there's a great story to come that's been wholly overshadowed in the past ten years.

Without further ado, let's go back to 2012.

The San Francisco 49ers are in a weird spot. In 2011, they had just made the NFC Championship game, and in all truthfulness should have won it, if not for the infamous collapse that happened there.

This all seems well and good, but the issue is that the 49ers played way over their heads in 2011, and everybody knows it. They made the NFC Championship game despite a very bad (negative EPA/Play) offence, something which only the 2015 Denver Broncos have done since. They finished 2011 with just 10.94 expected wins, but somehow converted those into 13 real ones, and beat a New Orleans Saints team quite a bit better than them in their Divisional round game. In all, it took a lot of luck to get where they got.

I'm going into all this detail to explain how a team that'd just made the NFC Championship game (and should have won it) could be so internally unhappy with how things have gone. They got so close, but remain so far away from their ultimate goal, and the primary reason for this, in the eyes of both the organisation and the fans, was their incumbent QB. Alex Smith.

Drafted first overall by the 49ers in 2005, Smith has mostly been awful for them, including (in my opinion) the worst season for any QB in the whole play tracking era in his rookie year of 2005. Of course, we all know the identity of the other QB selected in the first round in 2005 (Aaron Rodgers), and fans, pundits, Rodgers himself (a lifelong 49er fan), and everybody else has never allowed Smith or the 49ers to forget that they could have had Aaron instead of him.

Nevertheless, that first overall draft pedigree has been so sticky and difficult to move on from that going into 2012, seven years after initially drafting him, Alex Smith is still here. Prior to 2011, only one other QB had even been drafted by the Niners (Nate Davis, in the sixth round in 2009. Not exactly a blue chipper), but in 2011, all of that changed when the 49ers traded up to select Colin Kaepernick with the 36th pick of the draft.

This is not very far off being a first round draft pick, and to get Colin the team had to trade three picks, so he was a big investment, but he was also quite raw and not ready to start NFL games, so the 49ers went into 2011 still riding their former first overall draft pick, and we know how that went. Smith responded with the best season of his career, the 49ers made the NFC Championship game, but in that game, Smith failed on four potential game winning drives in a row at the end of the game, and eventually lost it.

This is beginning to get awkward. Once again, Smith has yet again made himself difficult to replace, without actually doing all that much to impress anybody. This time though, he's doing this dance with a very highly drafted QB on the bench behind him, which can't make top brass very happy. Even with the blue chip Colin Kaepernick behind him, Alex has more or less tied the hands of the organisation, and they're going to go at it with him again in 2012.

As 2012 begins, this gets even more awkward, as in week one, Smith takes the 49ers into Green Bay, outplays Aaron Rodgers, and walks out with a convincing win, in one of the defining performances of his career. Then in week two he does it again against the not to be overlooked early 2010s version of Matthew Stafford. In typical Alex Smith fashion, week three is a total dud in a baffling loss to Christian Ponder and the Minnesota Vikings, but weeks four and five are easy wins.

At this point it's becoming clear to all that Alex Smith is here to spoil the Kaepernick coronation party by having the best season of his career yet again. We've seen this before with highly drafted QBs. There's a reason you've never heard of people like John Beck, Marques Tuiasosopo, or Kellen Clemens. All of these QBs were drafted high in the second round, only for the incumbent to respond with the best season of their career and render the hot new QB prospect moot almost instantly.

I contend with how Alex Smith has been playing to start 2012, that the same thing has a real chance of happening to Colin. We know due to his post-San Francisco career that this is the level of play Alex Smith is going to be sustaining from now on. He is much better than he used to be, and will maintain this level of play for the nect five years.

There is a lot of baggage that comes with Alex Smith in San Francisco. There's been a lot of broken hearts and bad feelings between the sides over the past seven years. It's possible that due to all this, this relationship was doomed to fail, and if not at this hurdle then it would have found another chance to burst, but I believe that it's also possible that if Alex continues to play this well (as we know he will) all of that can be mended, and you and I will never hear the name Colin Kaepernick as anything other than a long term backup to a very successful Alex Smith era in San Francisco. This His Year article would have a different title, and the Smith era would be remembered a lot more fondly in San Francisco.

Unfortunately, the world doesn't always work like that. That would've been a great redemption story for Alex Smith, but there's a better story lurking just udner the surface that just needed a chance to be let out, and in a week ten game against the St. Louis Rams, it's going to get it.

This is a weird game. The 6-2 49ers are hosting the 3-5 Rams, but they fall into a quick 14-0 hole, as the Niners' defence (like many before them) can do nothing with Steven Jackson and the Rams' rushing attack. On the ensuing 49er drive, there's an Alex Smith scramble at 1:36 of the first quarter that features a horrendous hit on a non-sliding Smith, that we now know gives Alex a concussion.

Not being in the era of concussion spotters yet, Smith finishes this drive and even caps it off with a touchdown pass, but upon seeing him on their sideline the team cannot let him go back out. Alex will not return, and it's time to see what Colin Kaepernick can do.

What he can do is get two first downs and then punt on his first try without a single completed pass. A quick three and out by the Rams gets the ball right back, and this time Colin can at least get a pass completion, but still no first downs as the 49ers have to punt again. This takes into halftime facing a 14-7 deficit.

With the Rams getting the ball coming out of half, San Francisco doesn't see it again until 10:49, where Colin is able to complete one pass for one first down before the inevitable punt. From here, everybody on the Niners' offence gets a long break, as the Rams take almost nine full minutes to go down the field and score a field goal to drop SF into a 17-7 hole, but perhaps the break helped, as once they finally get off the sideline, they seemed to have figured things out a little bit.

A 20 yard pass to Mario Manningham gets the offencse rolling, and before we know it they're all the way to the St. Louis 24 without seeing so much as a third down, but then Colin takes a killer 12 yard sack to push the drive to third and 18 all the way from the 36. What was looking so promising now may not even result in a field goal. San Francisco's expected points from this possession dropped from 4.3 all the way to 1.5 on this one sack.

It's plays like this that show Colin may have something at the NFL level, as he stands in despite the pressure to throw a completion to Vernon Davis that gets 17 of the yards back. A Frank Gore rush on fourth and one gets the first down, and the offence goes back on the easy mode it'd been on. Two plays later the 49ers are in the end zone after a wonderful Kaepernick designed run for a TD (seriously, go back and watch it), and the deficit is narrowed to 17-14.

The next part of this game sees the ensuing kickoff fumbled, and one Frank Gore rush gets the 49ers back into the end zone, and out of nowhere a 17-7 deficit has become a 21-17 lead.

It only took 19 seconds to score 14 points, but the Niners are not out of the woods yet. They still can't do anything with Steven Jackson, and the Rams take another seven minutes to go down the field and score a touchdown to leave Colin and the Niners stuck with a 24-21 deficit with just 1:03 left in the fourth quarter.

For a player in his first real action as an NFL QB, Colin is certainly not being let in easily. The St Louis Rams will finish the 2012 season with the NFL's 11th ranked defence, so despite this not being a very difficult opponent in theory, this will not be an easy two minute drill to run, but Colin is up to the task.

Getting the ball on his own 25, the drive goes as follows: 19 yard scramble, four yard completion, ten yard scramble, 13 yard completion, a nine yard Frank Gore rush, and an eight yard completion. If you're keeping score, that leaves us at the 15 yard line with 11 seconds to go. The Niners do take one shot at the end zone, but it falls incomplete, and the game tying field goal sends us to overtime tied at 24.

Welcome to the NFL Colin Kaepernick. The Rams are not an easy offence to score on (as he's been showing all day), but he made that look easy. At last the defence gets a stop to begin the overtime period, and now it's Colin's time to show that he can go win an NFL game.

Starting at their own 40, the Niners immediately get into Ram territory with a Kaepernick to Michael Crabtree 11 yard completion. After two Frank Gore rushes comes a 14 yard designed Kaepernick rush to get to the St Louis 25. From here, being in field goal range, Jim Harbaugh pretty much shuts it down, and immediately gets a lesson on why you don't do that, as David Akers misses the ensuing 42 yard field goal try, and this game has to continue.

After the Rams commit a Delay of Game penalty to scuttle their potentially game winning field goal, the Niner offence gets the ball again with another chance to win, but lightning cannot strike twice. They go three and out and never see the ball again. St Louis cannot do anything either however, so this game ends in a 24-24 tie.

As they say, a tie is like kissing your sister. It won't do any good for anybody, and in truth this game was not pretty. The only pretty things that happened came courtesy of a concussed Alex Smith. Look at the disparity between the two San Francisco QBs today:

Colin did not play badly. He just didn't play well. Nowhere near as good as Alex did in his one quarter of action, but also no purple (the colour that denote below average) to be found. This was a perfectly okay performance, and out of a second year player with no NFL starts under his belt, I think the San Francisco fans will accept okay, although with who is coming up next week, they're going to need a little bit better than that.

Alex Smith will not be cleared in time to come back for week 11, so it's all on Colin when week 11 sees the 6-2-1 San Francisco 49ers hosting the 7-2 Chicago Bears for a Monday Night Football showdown for dominance in the race for the NFC's final first round bye (8-1 Atlanta has a death grip on the other one).

This game is going to be Colin's first career NFL start, and the pressure can't be any higher. In fact, this is certainly not the spot the 49ers wanted to get Colin into. The Bears are the league's very best defence, and not by a little bit either. The Bears rank first in the NFL with -0.143 EPA/Play allowed. The Cardinals rank second with -0.095. I take back what I said before and restate it with more emphasis. There is not a worse spot in the entire NFL to try to get a player making his first start into. This is the same core defence that carried the Bears to the NFC Championship game just two years ago in 2010, and the Niners are having to play it in primetime with a lot on the line without their top guy. They're going to have to play it with Colin Kaepernick.

Life, especially in the NFL, is unfair. Without fail, you will face unfair circumstances in this line of work. Some more unfair than others, with this being pretty high on that list. The true greats are the ones that can take their unfair circumstances and twist them to their advantage.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Colin Kaepernick's year.

San Francisco gets the ball to begin the game, and they make the most of it, with Colin completing passes of 23, 22, and 12 yards to get all the way to the Chicago 14 before settling for a field goal. Interestingly, when Chicago punts away their possession in response, commentator Mike Tirico says "punting is going to be a big deal tonight."

Not quite Mike.

Against by far the best defence in the NFL, San Fran's first four touches end (in order) with a field goal, touchdown, touchdown, field goal. In total on those four drives, they see fourth down just four times. They pull out to a 20-0 halftime lead, and this battle for NFC supremacy is over already. The Niners reach a 100 percent estimated Win Probability (according to NFLFastR) at 11:12 of the third quarter, when they score yet another touchdown to pull a 27-0 lead, and from here they call off the attack. It'll eventually end up a 32-7 win, and Colin Kaepernick has without doubt proved he belongs in the NFL.

Last week against the Rams may have been thoroghly unimpressive, but what can you say about this? Colin, in just his first career start, faced down the league's best defence and hung 0.45 EPA/Play on them. QBs have had great first starts before. Chad Pennington going blow for blow with an elite Trent Green in his first ever start comes to mind, but I'm not sure if even that can match this, and we all know I'm the world's biggest Chad Pennington fan.

In 2023 terms, this is like a QB making his first career start against Cleveland, and hanging 0.45 EPA/Play on them. Amazingly, we do have an example of a QB making their first career start against that Cleveland defence. It was Clayton Tune starting for Arizona in week nine, and he played perhaps the worst game any QB has ever played (not an exaggeration).

Throwing your young QB to the wolves in this way never works out well, but this time it did. To me, this shows that Colin is not only ready for the big lights, but he's a top QB in the NFL already, because nobody does this to the 2012 Bears. If you need more proof, here's an exhaustive list of every QB who could even put up positive EPA/Play against Chicago in 2012:

Colin Kaepernick, Cam Newton, Russell Wilson, and Aaron Rodgers once. That's everybody.

Justapose this with the list of people who could not manage to generate positive EPA against this Bears defence:

Andrew Luck, Aaron Rodgers in his other try, Matthew Stafford twice, Tony Romo and Matt Schaub, in addition to the Blaine Gabberts and the Sam Bradfords that nobody wants to hear about.

I'll reiterate one last time that Colin joined this crowd in his very first NFL start. He was thrown to the wolves. He was put in a position to fail. Better QBs than him have fallen at smaller hurdles than this, but Colin got through it.

Alex Smith will be cleared to play week 12 in New Orleans, but it's too late. In just one week, his job is already gone. We're into the Colin Kaepernick era now, and he won't be slowing down in New Orleans.

Colin walks into New Orleans, puts up 0.31 EPA/Play, outplays Drew Brees, and leaves with a convincing 31-21 victory. This is the loss that would send the Saints into a tailspin and cause the to have a several years long rebuild right in the middle of Drew Brees' prime, and it was delivered by the second career start of Colin Kaepernick.

Now sitting at 8-2-1, the Niners are certainly looking good for a first round bye, and perhaps more. That is, until week 13 in St Louis.

Much like week ten against the same Rams team, Colin lays another egg, including a horrible blunder on an option play that sees him pitch the ball over his back's head and allows St Louis to recover the fumble to score the game tying touchdown. This means that yet again the Niners have to go to overtime to try to get rid of the St Louis Rams, and it doesn't go well this time either.

Just like in week ten, David Akers misses the potentially game winning field goal, but this time Greg Zuerlein makes his, giving the Rams a 16-13 win, and handing Colin his first loss as an NFL QB.

If he let this get him down, he certainly doesn't show it in week 14, putting up 0.28 EPA/Play in another easy two touchdown win at home against Miami, to move the 49ers to 9-3-1 and keep them alive in the fight for the NFC's second first round bye.

Easy wins like this are very much needed, because the Niners are just barely holding onto the bye despite their very good record, and are just a 1.5 games ahead of the 8-5 Seahawks for the lead of their own division.

You see, the 49ers have the bad fortune of putting it together the best they have in years at the same time that everybody else decided to have that exact same idea. The 2012 NFC is perhaps the strongest individual conference since the play tracking era began in 1999. It features six teams (Atlanta, San Francisco, Chicago, Green Bay, Seattle, Washington) that will finish the year with at least 10.4 expected wins. For reference, in 2022 the entire NFL finished with six such teams (San Francisco, Philadelphia, Dallas, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Kansas City).

Green Bay have already and Seattle will go on to win the Super Bowl. The Falcons have and will make several NFC Championship games, before finally making the Super Bowl several years into the future. Chicago and Washington will never reach these heights again, but are not flukes right now, and in the middle of all this is our San Francisco 49ers, led by a man now with four NFL starts under his belt.

The San Francisco defence is very good. It will finish the season ranked fifth in the NFL, but it is still not quite good enough to not have to rely on their offence to get the job done. Nowehere will this be showcased better than in their week 15 matchup. For week 15 we're headed across the country to Foxborough to take on the New England Patriots.

The New England Patriots are playing for a lot. The Denver Broncos have the AFC's top seed locked up at this point, and in 2012 the Texans have finally gotten their act together, so they are the current holders of the AFC second seed. The Patriots are staring down the possibility of having to go into the playoffs with no bye for just the third time in the Brady Belichick era, so they're going to come with everything they've got tonight.

However much the Patriots are playing for, the 49ers are playing for even more. Unlike the Patriots, the Niners have the Seahawks right on their tail, with a matchup between the two set for next week in Seattle, so the division win, and by extension a playoff spot in this loaded NFC is not guaranteed yet, despite a 9-3-1 record.

In short, despite this game being played in week 15, both of these teams in the event of a loss have their backs pressed to the wall. If the Patriots lose, there will be no bye for them, something that they are not at all used to. If the 49ers lose, their playoff spot comes into question, especially with the nightmare game on the road in Seattle next week.

It's San Francisco against New England, not for all the marbles, but for a lot of marbles, and it starts right now.

The game begins with a Patriot three and out, and an easy 49er touchdown to immediately set the tone and jump out to a 7-0 lead. From here, the teams trade non-scoring drives all the way to 8:35 of the second quarter, where the Patriots finally find a field goal to get them onto the scoreboard and make the score 7-3. Perhaps now liking that the pressure is back on, it takes Colin just two passes (with two Frank Gore rushes sandwiched in the middle) to get back into the end zone with a 34 yard completion that make the score 14-3.

The Patriots again cannot respond against this suffocating San Francisco defence, so now there's 6:04 left in the second quarter, and Colin gets the ball back again, with the chance to go a long way towards putting this game away.

The drive uses all the remaining time in the half, and features several completions on second and third and longs to keep it going. Eventually, we find ourselves on the Patriot four yard line with 18 seconds left. A touchdown would take the score to 21-3 and really put a hurting on the Patriots' chances, so this is a very important touchdown to score, but the first try is an offensive pass interference penalty that moves the Niners all the way back to the 14.

A ten yard designed Kaepernick run gets SF back to the four yard line, but a Frank Gore rush cannot find the end zone on second down, and the Niners run out of time. On third down from the two with two seconds left, Jim Harbaugh elects to kick the field goal to go into half with the 17-3 lead.

Dang Colin. Good job.

The 2012 Patriot defence is nothing to write home about, but they're still good (12th in the NFL). Bigger than that is going on the road into a game as underdogs and walking into the locker room for half with an 83 percent estimated Win Probability (WP). That's great stuff. Unfortunately, Colin just couldn't find the end zone on that last touch of the first half, or this game may just be out of reach already, but this was still a great first half by any measure, and the second starts in exactly the same way.

SF gets the ball coming out of half and are marching down the field again, in no small part due to a 26 yard Kaepernick completion on a third and 15. The Niners are all the way to the Patriot 34 and looking to score again when the worst happens.

Colin throws the second interception of his career (the first being an unimportant toss in the easy win over New Orleans last month). This hurts badly, as this play alone takes SF's estimated WP from 90 percent back down to 82, and as the Patriots move down the field this creeps lower and lower. We all know you do not want to let the Patriots back into any game. If Tom Brady can come back on you he will.

Not this time.

A Stevan Ridley fumble and a 66 yard return give the Niners another touchdown to move the score to 24-3. Their next touch sees a Brady interception, and it takes Kaep just one throw to Michael Crabtree to get into the end zone again to move the score to 31-3 and improve SF's estimated WP to the mythical 100 percent at the 10:26 mark of the third quarter.

Oh no.

As we all know, when I bring up the dreaded one hundred percent chance of victory, nothing good ever comes from it. Especially with this much time remaining. The Patriots know what they need to do, runnning no huddle offence with 25 minutes left in the game, and scoring a touchdown quickly to make the score 31-10. The Niners elect to use their drive on three rushing plays to run some time off, and an incompletion on third down gives the ball right back to the Patriots, who score again on the first play of the fourth quarter to make the score 31-17.

This is starting to get a little nervous.

The Niners have no learned their lesson, and come out on their next touch playing real offence, but they still go three and out and give the ball right back to the Patriots again, who score quickly again to take the score to 31-24, and all of a sudden this has gone from no sweat to a real football game. This is even more true when the 49ers go three and out again, largely due to a killer 13 yard loss on a sack of Kaepernick, and the Patriots respond with their fourth touchdown in a row, and all of a sudden we've gone from a 100 percent chance to win to a tie game with the Patriots in the fourth quarter.

What the heck just happened?

I know it's a running joke in these pieces that if you see a zero percent chance of victory that it actually means a 100 percent chance of victory, but in real life it's exceedingly rare to see this kind of thing. The Patriots have made a 28 point comeback in just 19 minutes. The white hot Niner offence has gone cold as ice ever since they got that 100 percent chance of victory in the third quarter, and there's a real chance this is about to be one of the biggest chokes in sports history.

Remember the stakes here. No win for San Francisco means no first round bye, possibly no home playoff game at all, but a win means a pretty clear path to the NFC's second seed. I can guarantee you that the players do not want to play an etra playoff game, even if it is at home, and yet the offence and defence have just worked in tandem to surrender one of the biggest comebacks in NFL history to throw that bye away.

As the 49er offence walks back onto the field at 6:33 of the fourth quarter, they haven't gotten as much as a first down since 12:51 of the third. Both of their second half touchdowns have been one play drives off Patriot turnovers, so for the last time they truly moved the ball you have to go all the way back to the beginning of the half. In real time that's well over an hour ago.

Remember this is just Colin's fifth NFL start. QBs in their fifth NFL start are allowed to lose to the New England Patriots. That's okay, but goodness would it hurt to lose it in this way. Once again, Colin has been placed into a situation that is utterly unfair to put a first year starter into, a fourth quarter duel with Tom Brady, but once again he's going to take his unfair circumstances and twist them to his advantage.

As the 49ers walk on the field, perhaps even they would be surprised by what's coming next.

Colin Kaepernick to Michael Crabtree. Touchdown.

Another one play touchdown just when his team needed it most pushes the score to 38-31 for the Niners. It couldn't have been any bigger. The Patriots do not score any more, and San Francisco averts disaster and wins this game 41-31.

Whew. That was close.

In all, Colin did not play great in this game, generating 0.09 EPA/Play in his 36 touches, but it's not his fault that the Patriots kept turning the ball over and giving him these short fields to work with (situations with a lot of Expected Points to begin with really hurt your ability to generate more Expected Points). It's great to see games like this to remind yourself that the first three quarters count just as much as the fourth one does.

It's important to get out to as big a lead as possible, becuase you never know whether or not you're going to sqander it. Colin had 31 points on the board by the time Tom Brady got three, and thank goodness he did, becuase he needed every one of them. Even once the comeback was made, he still had the fortitude to go out there and throw another touchdown pass when his team was at its greatest moment of need.

On the stat sheet, this game was not very impressive, but how can you not be impressed by a man in his fifth career NFL start going out there and doing that to the New England Patriots? Great job Colin.

Now at 10-3-1, the 49ers control their own destiny for a first round bye, but in hindsight they are clearly out of gas and not prepared to travel back across the country to play the Seattle Seahawks, and they get their doors blown off in a humiliating 42-13 division loss to drop to 10-4-1. Thankfully, that win against the Patriots keeps the division crown safe, but with the loss the 49ers fall behind the Packers in the standings, meaning the first round bye is all but gone.

The only choice for week 17 is to win and to hope that the Packers lose. Thankfully, the Niners' week 17 matchup is at home against Arizona, and they win easily. They're left with nothing to do but watch as on the other side of the country Adrian Peterson is running for 199 yards and Christian Ponder is keeping up with a very game Aaron Rodgers as the Minnesota Vikings defeat the Packers 37-34 to vault the 49ers back into position again.

After all we've been through, we're going where His Year has only been three times before. We're going into the playoffs with a bye, but before we go there, we have to talk about Colin Kaepernick.

How about this guy? Have you ever seen anything like this before? Don't get me wrong. There have been electric starts to NFL careers before. In fact, they happen all the time. 2002 Chad Pennington, 2004 Ben Roethlisberger, 2006 Tony Romo, RG3 and Russell Wilson both in this same 2012 season, 2016 Dak Prescott, 2017 DeShaun Watson, and 2018 Patrick Mahomes all come to mind, but it doesn't happen like this.

The 2002 Jets, 2004 Steelers, 2012 Redskins, 2012 Seahawks, 2016 Cowboys, and 2017 Texans were all begging for new QBs at the time, and the young guys stepped up to fill the need. That's not what this was. The 2012 49ers had a starting QB having the best season of his career that was set to be out one game with a concussion, but by the time he came back his job was already gone. That's something special.

In just his first seven NFL starts, Colin tore apart the NFL's best defence in a blowout win, outplayed Drew Brees in an easy win over the Saints, and won a fourth quarter duel with Tom Brady. In so doing, he generated 0.195 EPA/Play (7th among players with at least 180 plays in 2012) on a 4.5 CPOE (6th) and a 7.55 ANY/A (2nd).

Most players have to wait a career to acheive any of those things, and we've just seen Colin do it over the course of seven weeks. It is not fair or reasonable to ask a first year starter to accomplish any of these things, but he did it anyway. All of this with a perfectly capable Alex Smith still chomping at the bit to get his starting spot back, so you can bet Colin got pushed to the brink every week in practice.

There was nothing easy about any of this, but he certainly made it look easy, and he deserves all the credit in the world for that.

If you've read this far you may have noticed one thing that was conspicuous in its absence. I haven't mentioned Colin's skills as a runner. Not even once. You may be wondering why this is, but there's a simple answer for it.

Colin just doesn't run that much.

I'm going to clear something up right now. People remember Colin Kaepernick and think of him as if he's Lamar Jackson. That's almost entirely incorrect. Most Ravens games will feature at least six designed Lamar Jackson runs, in addition to the scrambles, which is why in Lamar's His Year article I was constantly separating Lamar's abilities as a passer and as a runner, and pointing out when one shined and the other didn't. The majority of games in this amazing seven week stretch feature fewer than three designed runs for Colin. While you may look at the box score and see a lot of rushing attempts, almost all of those are scrambles.

Scrambling requires an ability to scan the field and make the determination as to whether it's better to run or throw, which fundamentally categorizes it as a passing skill, not a rushing one. This fact, along with his 4.5 CPOE, means that Colin Kaepernick in 2012 was an elite passer, and I refuse to allow you to conceptualise him as a 'running QB,' which is a phrase that doesn't mean anything, but nevertheless has a negative connotation to it.

I bring all that up just to ensure you remember Colin's greatness as a pocket passer as a justification for why what happens next happens in the way that it does. For me to get into more detail on that statement, we have to go to San Francisco for a rematch of week one between the Niners and the Packers.

A lot has changed since Alex Smith dominated Green Bay in week one, primarily that Alex will not touch the ball today. This has now become Colin's team, but the results will not be any different.

Things look good on the first drive of the game. It takes one quick pass and one Frank Gore rush to get the opening first down, and it seems like the Niners are set to get off to a hot start, which is essential with Aaron Rodgers on the other sideline. After another Frank Gore rush, it's second and six. The Niners go play action, but the Packers are not fooled. Colin is immediately flushed out left, and tries to squeeze a pass in to Vernon Davis, but just can't get enough arm on it. It falls into the arms of Sam Shields, who runs into the distance.

Touchdown Green Bay.

This is the type of mistake a QB in his eighth NFL start would make. These things happen, and it's okay, but yet again it's terrible timing. This immediately puts his team into a hole that NFLFastR estimates they only have a 38 percent chance of climbing out of. This sucks, but if there's anything we've seen about Colin in the seven games we've been with him, it's that he doesn't let these things get him down. He's going to go back out onto the field and keep chucking, and that's exactly what happens, but not quite in the way you would think.

The first play of the drive is a five yard Frank Gore rush, and the second is a small scramble for Colin to bring up third and two. At this point, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman start talking about him possibly being nervous, especially in the wake of that early turnover. Obviously they haven't watched him as much as we have, as I'm 100 percent sure that's untrue. SF is able to get the first down, by way of a defensive holding penalty, but the next two passes fall incomplete, bringing up third and ten.

Troy Aikman again remarks that he thinks Colin is nervous. Again I completely disagree with him, and I am proven correct on this third down play, as it looks quite similar to the turnover before, with Colin being flushed out to his left, but this time goes much better for the 49ers. As the corner bites up to deal with the threat of the scramble, Colin drops it right over his head for a big 45 yard pass play.

He's not nervous. He's ready.

A sack on the next play brings up second and 17, but even that can't stop the Niners, as on third and eight from the Green Bay 20, Colin finds a wide open running lane to scramble into the end zone for a touchdown. Once again, it's Colin analysing the coverage in order to find an easy touchdown on the ground. A rushing QB can't do that. Colin Kaepernick can.

The next two drives see both teams trading punts before the Packers put the ball in the end zone themselves to see a 14-7 score at the close of the first quarter. Now facing a deficit, the drive starts with a 15 yard Kaepernick to Crabtree completion, but after a first down pass that goes right through Delanie Walker's hands, a three yard designed run for Colin, and a completion short of the sticks on third down, the 49ers have failed to respond.

At least, that would be true if the punt weren't muffed.

Colin doesn't let the second chance go to waste. A clutch third and goal completion to Michael Crabtree sees the Niners score another touchdown to even the score at 14.

After a Rodgers interception, SF is able to respond again, even despite a taunting penalty on another clutch third down scramble by Colin.

I know in theory the calls are supposed to go the same for everybody, but have you ever seen the QB get a taunting penalty?

No matter. Just two plays afterwards Colin has thrown a 20 yard touchdown pass, again to Michael Crabtree, and the Niners are ahead 21-14. After the Packers respond to even the game at 21, San Francisco has to run a two minute drill at the end of the first half, and the reult is one of the oddest two minute scenarios you'll see.

In order, it goes designed run for Colin that goes nowhere, 19 yard scramble, incompletion, incompletion, 18 yard scarmble, seven yard completion, six yard non-Colin rush attempt, incompletion, nine yard scramble, so despite just one completed pass for just seven yards the 49ers are able to kick a field goal as the half ends to go into the half with a 24-21 lead.

You may ask why exactly that's odd. After all I was just explaining how good Colin is at analysing the coverage and deciding when to take off and run. Well, that's precisely why this drive is so odd. Why do the Packers keep running blitz man defence when it's clear Colin can see what's happening and just keeps taking off on them?

Joe Buck and Troy Aikman ask the same question. Everybody is asking that question. Only Green Bay's defensive coordinator Dom Capers knows the answer to it, but it's clear to see Colin and the 49er offence have benefitted from it immensely in the first half, and what a first half it was.

Aside from the one turnover, Colin was terrific, keeping step for step with Aaron Rodgers, and despite the uniqueness of the two minute drill it was also very successful. It seems almost nothing can go wrong for either offence, and despite both starting the second half with three and outs, that's not going to be stopping any time soon.

Following a Packer field goal to tie the game back at 24, Colin comes back out and makes it look easy. One completion to Michael Crabtree, then another, and then yet another designed run for Colin. Normally not a successful concept for San Francisco, either tonight or throughout the season, but this one breaks big. It's the Colin Kaepernick run that everybody remembers. It's the clip that still gets circulated all the time. It's a 56 yard touchdown run, and it couldn't have come at a better time. The 49ers are back on top 31-24, and now it's on Aaron again to try to respond.

He can't. He never will. The Packers cannot respond on their next touch, and the Niners score easily in response to make the score 38-24. Once the Packers have to punt away their first touch of the fourth, SF again walk straight down the field for another touchdown, and it's over. Once garbage time touchdown makes the score 45-31, but it will get no closer. It's become clear that Aaron Rodgers has been outplayed by the second different San Francisco QB this year, this time in a playoff game.

Do you know how hard it is to put on so much offensive pressure that even Aaron Rodgers can't keep up with you, in a playoff game?

Spoiler alert: it's almost impossible. In this 2009-14 era, virtually the only way to beat an Aaron Rodgers team in the playoffs is to match him shot for shot and just hope to have the ball last. That's how Kurt Warner did it in that epic 51-45 shootout.

Aaron played great again tonight, generating 0.23 EPA/Play on 45 touches. Those are numbers good enough to win a playoff game, but not when you're playing against Colin Kaepernick, who generated 0.39 EPA/Play on 48 touches, and an astonishing 0.84 EPA/Play on his 12 rushing touches, which don't even include the scrambles. This game netted Colin the record for most rushing yards by a QB in a playoff game, a record he still holds, and the most rushing yards by any 49er in a playoff game, a record he still holds. All of this despite most of his designed rushes crashing and burning all night.

Do I have to bring up that this was the man's eighth NFL start, or is that still top of mind for us all? I think it's good to bring it up anyway that a man now with eight NFL starts under his belt has torn up the league's best two defences (Chicago and Arizona) and outdueled Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and now Aaron Rodgers in a playoff game. It'll give fans reading this more hope in their second round QB prospect. Maybe he can do this too.

Likely not though.

I've always found it odd that some players spend years trying to get their proper recognition, while others immediately get recognized for how great they are. For example, did you know that David Garrard has a higher career CPOE than Tom Brady? Did you know Matt Schaub never had worse numbers than Eli Manning in any season in the 2007-12 stretch? Did you know that it's now been two full years since Justin Herbert was a better QB than Tua Tagovailoa?

You likely didn't answer yes to any of those questions, because I'm the one that's the researcher here, and you're the one that relies on me to tell you the story. While oftentimes I break my back to give recognition to players that deserved it but never got it, this is a bit of a different story, because after that performance against Green Bay, Colin Kaepernick is drowning in recognition.

In fact, he's getting so much recognition that the 11-4-1 San Francisco 49ers are walking into Atlanta to face the 13-3 Falcons as four point favourites. This shocks me, because normally when a team with one of the league's best offences led by one of the league's best QBs in Matt Ryan, with the league's eighth best defence to boot, play at home against a team with only a slightly better defence, and an offence led by a QB making his ninth career start, they don't play that game as four point underdogs.

That's how much recognition Colin Kaepernick has gotten.

On the other hand, perhaps we shouldn't be so sure of ourselves. The His Year series has gone to the conference championship game twice. In those two tries, Carson Palmer led us to a 34 point loss, and Case Keenum led us to a 31 point loss, and it's not looking much better in Atlanta.

It's the end of the first quarter. Both of our offensive touches have resulted in three and outs, meanwhile Atlanta has scored two touchdowns and a field goal with their tries, and have a 17-0 lead. The Falcons have not been in blitz man in the same way that Green Bay were, and are forcing Colin to win with his arm, a strategy that's held Colin to a mere one completion so far.

As far as His Year in the conference championship goes, this is looking pretty typical. Perhaps if we follow the pattern we can make this a 28 point loss. The Niners are able to respond with a touchdown to narrow the score to 17-7 and get themselves off the deck, but I'm not truly convinced until the defence finally manages to stop the white hot Falcons, giving Colin the ball back at 6:24 of the second quarter.

You're saying there's a chance?

Once again undaunted by the failures of the beginning of this game, Colin completes three passes on this drive, all to Vernon Davis, plus a 23 yard scramble to get SF right back in the end zone again, and narrow the score to 17-14. At this point, you can see light in the 49ers, but this light is immediately dampened again by a Falcon touchdown in the two minute drill that leaves the score at 24-14 going into halftime.

We're left in the position at the half of Colin having played great football, but not having touched the ball enough to have that great play make a difference. Those opening two three and outs really hurt as Atlanta quickly ran away and built up a huge lead. I honestly don't see Colin having too much trouble scoring more on this Falcon defence, but ten point deficits are hard to make up when the other team is scoring constantly.

This means two things: the first is that every possession from here on is absolutely imperative. This deficit cannot afford to get any bigger with time starting to run low. The second is that Colin better cheer hard from the sideline, because a stop is necessary somewhere along the way.

At the dawn of the half, the offence does their part. They don't even see a third down as they march straight down the field for an easy score. The defence struggles, but in the end does their part too, as an interception on the SF 38 gives the offence a great chance to take the lead. Unfortunately, they cannot do that, as one 31 yard throw is the only completion on the drive, but they do find themselves in great position to tie the game. David Akers' field goal try bangs off the left upright, meaning the whole drive was for nothing, and it's back to cheering for the defence.

They again struggle, but again find an opportunity as Matt Ryan fumbles the snap at the SF 34 yard line, and again puts Colin in position to go take the take, and once again he does his part. In a flash, the Niners are to the Falcon five yard line, but once again something out of Colin's control takes his chance away, as a fumble on a completed pass gives the ball back to Atlanta on the one yard line with the score still 24-21 at 13:24 of the fourth quarter.

At last the defence finds an Atlanta three and out, and punting out of their end zone means they can only get the ball out to their 38, which is a third consecutive golden opportunity for Colin and his Niner offence.

This one they take advantage of, requiring just one pass completion and a barrage of Frank Gore runs to at last find the end zone and take the lead for the first time all day at the 8:27 mark of the fourth quarter. From here, the Atlanta offence spends seven minutes grinding their way all the way to the SF ten yard line, but just cannot find the end zone. They turn the ball over on downs, and Colin has won his second straight playoff game.

Nine career starts, a 7-2 record, two playoff wins, and now victories over Brees, Brady, Rodgers, Ryan, in addition to the best and second best defences in the NFL. Along the way there's been NFL records set, and in the best year there's ever been for first year QBs, featuring breakouts from Russell Wilson, RG3, Andrew Luck, and Colin Kaepernick, we are the last one standing.

In perhaps the strongest NFC there's ever been, the San Francisco 49ers have ridden the first nine starts of Colin Kaepernick all the way to the top. Along the way, they've burdened him with having to go against the league's best defence in his first career start, to which he responded with the best game for any QB all year against the Bears. They've burdened him with having to outplay Tom Brady in a fourth quarter, which not many can do, but Colin Kaepernick did. They've burdened him with having to come back from a 17 point deficit in a playoff game, which not many can do, but Colin did.

In short, these were absolutely unfair circumstances to throw a first year man into. The 49ers deserved to crash and burn for throwing Colin into this. With any other second round man in his second year they would have crashed and burned for trying this, but they didn't. Somehow, it's all stayed together, and we're going to the big dance.

Somehow, some way, Colin Kaepernick's tenth career start is going to be Super Bowl 47.

As far as matchups are concerned, it seems as if we've caught a break. In Super Bowl 47, Colin doesn't have to face the AFC's best team (Denver). He doesn't have to face their second best team (New England). He doesn't have to face their third best team (Houston). He doesn't have to face their fourth best team (Cincinnati). Instead of all these potential options, Colin gets to face the AFC's fifth best team (by point differential and expected wins), the Baltimore Ravens.

There are six main areas of performance for a football team. These areas are pass, rush and total offence, as well as pass, rush and total defence. To be a great team, you generally have to be in the top ten in four out of these six categories. You can be great without doing everything well, but you can't be great without doing most things well. Colin and the 49ers rank in the top ten in all six categories, and are top five in most of them. Would you like to know what the 2012 Ravens are particularly good at doing?

The answer is only rush defence.

That's right. The 2012 Ravens are the AFC's participants in the Super Bowl despite ranking 13th in the NFL in total defence, 13th in pass defence, just tenth in rush defence, 12th in rushing offence, 15th in passing offence, and 14th in total offence.

This is a Ravens team that's good, but one that was not expected to win round two or round three and wouldn't have been favoured to win in round one either if not for a favourable seeding scenario. In short, I'm not calling the Ravens bad, but I am calling them about the worst team you can expect to find at this level. There hasn't been a team this bad in the Super Bowl since.

What I'm saying is that while I was somewhat shocked when the 49ers walked into Atlanta as four point favourites, the only thing that shocks me now is that the Niners are favoured by just five in the Super Bowl. These Ravens are not as good as Atlanta. They're not as good as Green Bay. They're not as good as Seattle. They're not as good as New England, so this is going to be one of the easier games the Niners have had in a while.

In all honesty, I'm not sure if that helped, because I'm not sure it's possible to take your opponent lightly in the Super Bowl, but if it is, we definitely saw it here.

The first half goes dreadfully for the SF offence. The first drive is a three and out. The second gets all the way to the goal line, but is forced to settle for three. The third touch is looking really good again, and is down to the Baltimore 25 before a fumble gives the ball back to the Ravens. The fourth sees just one play, which is a Kaepernick interception, and the fifth is another three and out.

This takes us to 1:45 of the second quarter. While the Niners have been walking in quicksand, Joe Flacco has been having the game of his life in leading the Ravens to a 21-3 lead. This reminds me a lot of Atlanta two weeks ago, and the same principle applies. Scoring here is absolutely imperative in order to overcome this deficit, and from there it's reasonable.

Unlike Atlanta, it just doesn't happen. Don't get me wrong. The two minute drill goes well. It only takes SF 33 seconds to get to the Baltimore 17, but they just can't find the end zone, again having to settle for three in the shadow of the goalposts to go into the half facing a 21-6 deficit.

This has been a season marked by overcoming adversity, so I have no worries Colin and the offence will be able to rebound from this, but I have to wonder what they were thinking as the rest of us were watching Beyonce perform the extended halftime show. Normally for halftime you only get 12 minutes to think about it, but at a Super Bowl you often get over 30. I don't think this lends itself to the team down 21-6 despite being fairly hefty favourites, but it also might. More time makes it easier to remind your guys how much better than the Ravens they are, so let's see what happens coming out of the half.

Jacoby Jones for 108 yards. Touchdown.

Are you kidding me? This is exactly what we didn't need to happen. The 21-6 deficit has now become 28-6, and the somewhat manageable deficit has now become almost insurmountable in the blink of an eye. This changes everything for the 49ers. It takes their estimated WP from a still respectable 18 percent all the way down to four, meaning it will now take a miracle for them to win this football game.

A miracle does come, but it doesn't benefit the 49ers.

On their ensuing offensive drive, Colin rips a 29 yard competion to Michael Crabtree to get the drive started on the right foot, but a sack on a second and seven leaves the Niners in a rough spot facing third and 13 from their own 40. They have a good chance to come back from this and get a first down, because Colin still has that strong arm of his, but before they get a chance, we're going to have to wait a while.

Before this third down play, the lights go out, and in a league with a 40 second play clock we get to wait 34 minutes between one play and the next. The conspiracy theories immeiately start, because lengthening the Super Bowl by 34 minutes seems to be a conspicuously large benefit the league and it's advertisers, but I'm not going to get into that here.

What I am going to get into is how this 34 minute break immediately after a 30 minute halftime break is not good for anybody. It ruins this 49er drive, as they come out running a rudimentary play that does not pick up 13 yards and have to punt the ball back to the Ravens, but it also doesn't benefit the Ravens, as their offence hasn't seen the field since 1:58 of the second quarter, and even that was a three play touchdown drive. You have to go back to 3:12 of the second quarter for the last time the Ravens had any sustained offensive success. In real time that's over an hour and a half, and Joe Flacco's rhythm is absolutely broken.

The blackout caused all kinds of weirdness, as what also happened at the same time was the 49ers, down 28-6 at 11:40 of the third quarter without the ball, reaching a zero percent chance of victory. Reaching zero this early into the game is rare and hard to do, but it also means you have the biggest chance to come back from it.

After the Ravens go three and out, it's time. This has been a season for Colin marked by overcoming difficulties, ignoring past failures, and pushing forward as if everything is perfact. No time is that skill set more valuable than right now. As we've seen just a few weeks ago in New England, a comeback from this far back is absolutely possible, and the Niners get to it, with Colin throwing a 31 yard touchdown pass to Michael Crabtree to narrow the score to 28-13. That's a good start.

After another Raven three and out and a wonderful punt return, it takes only two plays to get back into the end zone to narrow the score to 28-20, and Baltimore's next drive sees a fumble on their own 25.

A comeback from a 28-6 deficit in the Super Bowl would be epic enough, but SF is on the verge of getting it done in just ten minutes. Unfortunately, two incompletions in a row means the drive must end with a field goal to make the score 28-23. The Ravens finally get their offence going in order to repond with a field goal of their own to move the score to 31-23 at 12:47 of the fourth.

The 49ers are going to get the ball back in the fourth quarter, down by one touchdown. This is what every NFL player dreams about when they were a little kid, and Colin is getting the chance to actually live it. On the flip side, this means the pressure is on. The lights don't get any brighter than they are now. Colin has been under immense pressure this entire time, and hasn't shown signs of wear yet, and I've expressed my belief in him throughout the process, but if they're ever going to show it's right now, but once again they don't.

Colin Kaepernick comes through yet again. Five plays, two and a half minutes, 76 yards, touchdown San Francisco.

Unbelievable.

I swear this man must have been born with ice water in his veins. He took all the pressure in the world and just spit on it. It was easy. No third downs. No incompletions. Nothing went wrong. It was like a training camp drill, except it was the fourth quarter of a Super Bowl. Not everybody can do this. Almost nobody can do this, and we're still in just his tenth career start.

The two point conversion try does fall incomplete, as Ed Reed goes offside and forces Colin to throw to Randy Moss, who isn't even looking at him yet. We all look around, and somehow there is no flag. In the modern day this wouldn't have even been a free play. It would have brought on one of the unblocked to the QB whistles. This is one of the most crucial fotgotten missed calls in NFL history, because of what comes next, but I'll be very clear that the Niners should have had the chance to try this again, and it was stolen from them. If they get a real chance to try this two point conversion, who knows what may have been different in the annals of NFL history, but as it stands, don't allow it to do anything to dampen your opinion of the clutchness of Colin Kaepernick.

Do any of you believe he would've failed if given a real chance at it?

After another Baltimore field goal to make the score 34-29, we're back in the same spot as before. Once again the touchdown is the only option, and once again it's all on Colin. This time there's 4:19 left on the clock, so it's either a touchdown here or lose the Super Bowl. I didn't think this was possible, but there's perhaps even more pressure than there was the first time.

Once again it just looks easy. The 49ers are down to the Baltimore seven yard line before seeing a third down. For the first time since 12:04 of the second quarter, San Francisco's estimated WP is back over 50 percent. With the first play being a Frank Gore rush, it's now second and goal from the five yard line.

Incompletion to Michael Crabtree.

Two more tries, and I would still bet on the 49ers in this situation, although their occasional difficulties putting the ball in the end zone through the course of this season are coming back as painful memories now.

Incompletion to Michael Crabtree.

It's even more painful now, but there's still one more chance.

Incompletion to Michael Crabtree.

Oh my goodness. We've just lost the Super Bowl.

As the clock strikes zero, and the Baltimore Ravens win 34-31, and our comeback falls just short, I feel just like one of the players in that I am awestruck and don't have many words to say.

I, like many of you, have been coasting through this experience not expecting to lose at any point, because Colin is always going to save us in the end, but this time it just didn't happen. The man who through the whole season never felt the pressure, never tripped on any hurdle, didn't have any issue overcoming a 17 point deficit in the NFC Championship, made a 22 point comeback in the Super Bowl look easy, has just fallen at the final obstacle, and that legitimately shocks me.

This is like watching your favourite movie over and over and all of a sudden one time the ending changes, and the hero trips over one of the obstacles that he's always jumped over every time you've watched the movie, except this one, and that's it. It's over, and you're looking at the screen dumbfounded.

That's how I feel about Colin Kaepernick.

If just one of those balls to Michael Crabtree could have been completed, this would've been one of the best stories in NFL history. It is anyway, even with the goal line stand, but gosh do I just wish we could go back and change the ending.

I suppose that's a sentence that can have a few different meanings with respect to Colin Kaepernick's NFL career.

Over his first ten NFL starts, Colin went to the top of the world. He'll spend his next 54 falling down the side of the mountain.

In the end, time would prove San Francsico wrong in going with Colin and getting rid of Alex Smith, as Alex would go on to bigger and better things and had some great years left in him as the starter for the Kansas City Chiefs, meanwhile the 49ers would be left with one of only four QBs in NFL history (along with Charlie Frye, Cody Kessler, and Sam Bradford) to have as high as a 4.5 CPOE in a season, and never have a positive one ever again.

As KC grew into the winner they are today with Smith under centre, the 49ers spent those same years wilting into the awful squad that was willing to trade a high draft pick for another blue chip second round QB prospect by the name of Jimmy Garoppolo to fill the hole that Colin left behind.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why this happened, because I've just gone through all of Colin's elite 2012, and I can promise you he had everything it took for sustained NFL level success. Is it possible, as some have speculated, that all the time spent on non-football interests ate into his abilities to play QB? Perhaps, but weirdly prominent off the field interests never seemed to hamper Aaron Rodgers all that much, so I'm somewhat doubtful on that one myself.

In truth, I'm not sure why Colin fell off so hard, but he did, and that sucks, and maybe one day I will write down my opinions on that situation, but that day is not today. I'm just happy to have finally written down my thoughts on 2012.

Never forget Colin Kaepernick's Year.