Raiders coach Josh McDaniels refuses to discuss Colin Kaepernick despite workout

Anything interesting happen with your team recently, Josh?

Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels refused to answer questions about Colin Kaepernick in a press conference Thursday – despite the fact that the team brought the former NFL quarterback in for an unprecedented workout the day before.

“We will only talk about the people that are on our team,” the former Patriots offensive coordinator said Thursday. “Dave (Ziegler) and his staff have worked out tons of guys this spring. We really don’t make comments about the evaluations that we made or what they looked like, what they didn’t look like, strengths and weaknesses, those kinds of thing. They are obviously kind of private for us as we look at things to try to make decisions to make the team better.

“If players are added to the team, then obviously we’ll talk about them at that point.”

The Raiders brought Kaepernick – who hasn’t played a down in the NFL since 2016, when he began kneeling for the national anthem – in for a workout on Wednesday, the first time a team has shown official interest in him since the Seahawks brought him in for a visit in 2017. Reports out of the workout were positive; NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport tweeted that he impressed and that the “door is open,” while ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler said the team noted his “arm strength and good overall conditioning.”

The Raiders have Derek Carr entrenched as a starter, but lost last year’s backup, Marcus Mariota, to the Falcons during the offseason. If signed, Kaepernick could theoretically slide into that role and perhaps be involved in some packages as a runner.

Still, the team has made it very clear that they will not discuss him publicly until the ink is put to the paper.

“We brought in tons of people for workouts,” McDaniels said. “If there’s an opportunity to improve the team, we said it from Day 1 that we would look at every opportunity. He’s not the first player that we’ve looked at and not the last one. There are going to be a lot of people who are going to come in and out of this building and have an opportunity to make an impression.”