Jay Gruden said the injury-ravaged Washington Redskins “talked about and discussed” signing Colin Kaepernick this past week, but no one from the team reached out to the free agent quarterback, a source tells ESPN.
In fact, despite multiple teams’ need for quarterbacks throughout the season, not one team has reached out to Kaepernick to gauge his interest or arrange a workout, according to a league source.
Gruden said Wednesday that the Redskins opted against signing Kaepernick because Washington would have to change too much of its offense to adapt to Kaepernick. Gruden acknowledged that there would have been “a greater possibility” of considering Kaepernick if the Redskins were in need of a quarterback in Week 1 rather than Week 14.
“There’s not a lot of time to get a brand new quarterback and system installed in a couple of days,” he said. “He’s been talked about, but we’ll probably go in a different direction.”
Gruden also said the Redskins’ decision was only based on on-field reasons.
“Just football, strictly football,” Gruden said. “When you’re talking about a backup quarterback this late in the game you want someone with a similar skill set to the quarterback you have. Not that Colin can’t do some of the things we’ve talked about, but we want someone with a little more familiarity.”
Mark Sanchez, who signed with Washington last month, will start at quarterback Sunday against the New York Giants. The Redskins signed quarterback Josh Johnson on Wednesday after losing Colt McCoy to a broken leg in Monday’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Redskins already are without quarterback Alex Smith, who underwent season-ending surgery last month to repair a broken tibia and fibula in his right leg.
ESPN’s John Keim and The Associated Press contributed to this report.