49ers bench Colin Kaepernick for Blaine Gabbert

What are the 49ers doing?

Kaepernick led the 49ers to the Super Bowl following the 2012 season after taking over from Alex Smith midway through the year.

Kaepernick has thrown for 1,615 yards with six touchdowns and five interceptions and has the lowest quarterback rating of his five-year career. It is hard to contend that he is being treated unfairly.

San Francisco (2-6) responded to their abysmal start to the campaign by trading away veteran tight end Vernon Davis to the Denver Broncos on Monday. Kaepernick went a fourth straight game without an interception in the loss.

And it looks like the 49ers have chose to make a change. There is no starter-in-waiting in the organization. That included zero quarterbacks. As far as pulling the plug on a “franchise quarterback”, his benching marks one of the quicker turnarounds in National Football League history.

“They lost six of their first-rounders. Six”. He’s now a practice-squad wide receiver for the Seattle Seahawks.

What has happened to Kaepernick?

“If you were going to bench Colin Kaepernick, you should have did it a few weeks ago”. That dropped to 86.4 last season and continued to plummet this season. There’s a small amount of teams that could try to bring in Kaepernick like the Philadelphia Eagles, Cleveland Browns or the New York Jets. The situation around him has really deteriorated. The 49ers should encase him in bubble wrap, attach blinking red lights like the cyclists wear and surround him with yellow crime-scene tape on the sidelines. Last season was filled with internal strife leading to Harbaugh’s exit. The catch is that if the 49ers release the star-crossed quarterback before April 1, 2016, the balance they’ll owe him on the remainder of his deal is $0.

The 49ers may be hoping that Gabbert will be better after sitting and watching for most of the past two years. “Colin didn’t play good enough, neither did the team, the San Francisco 49ers didn’t play good enough”.

San Francisco traded a sixth-round pick during the offseason to acquire Gabbert from the Jaguars. Many of his early struggles were attributed to injuries and a lack of offensive weapons around him. This certainly did not help Kaepernick’s standing with fans, the front office, or the locker rooms.

Added Mark Long, who covers the Jaguars for the Associated Press: “Two things I didn’t think I’d ever (have to) see again: Mike Mularkey as a head coach and Blaine Gabbert as a starting QB”.