Jay Gruden: Redskins considered working out Colin Kaepernick, but decided against it

Gruden, who said that the decision to not bring Kaepernick in for a workout was made for football reasons only, said Kaepernick had been “discussed, for sure,” but that his skillset didn’t match what they needed in a quarterback being picked up five days before the team’s next game.

“It’s just going to be a matter of which way do we want to go?” Gruden said. “Do we want to go with a guy that’s familiar with my terminology who we worked out last week... or go with a guy and teach, basically, a whole new kind of offense with new offensive linemen with a lot of the zone reads and all that stuff. Not a lot of time to really get a brand new quarterback, a new system installed and taught in a couple days of practice.”

Gruden added: “He’s been talked about and discussed, but we’ll probably go in a different direction.”

Mark Geragos, Kaepernick’s attorney in his pending collusion grievance against the NFL and teams, said that the Redskins’ decision supports Kaepernick’s claims.

“Isn’t it obvious what’s happening?” Geragos said via email.

Gruden said that they would need to build a specific package of plays and formations to take advantage of Kaepernick’s athleticism, and that doing so this late in the season wasn’t realistic. Had the injuries taken place in Week 1, he said, it might be a different story.

Kaepernick was not considered two weeks ago when the team worked out and signed Sanchez, Gruden explained, for similar reasons. The team had San Francisco 49ers starting quarterback Colin Kaepernick throws against the Seattle Seahawks in the fourth quarter of their NFL game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara on Thursday Night Football, Oct. 22, 2015.

a short week before playing on Thanksgiving and Gruden wanted someone who could fit in as soon as possible.

“We wanted a guy with a similar skill-set with Colt,” Gruden said. “Somebody to come in in a pinch and function a little bit. Which Sanchez did. … We just wanted somebody to have a similar skill-set to Colt and

had a little bit of familiarity with some of the concepts that we’ve been running.

“Not that Colin can’t do some of the things I’m talking about. But somebody with a little bit of familiarity. Sanchez being with [offensive coordinator Matt] Cavanaugh helped out a lot. Sanchez’s experience in a pro-style offense helped out a lot. But when

you have a short week like we had … you had to have somebody in here that had some similar conceptual awareness that we had with Colt. That’s why we went with Sanchez.”

Kaepernick has not been able to join an NFL team’s roster, despite a 49ers resume that includes leading the team to a Super Bowl appearance in the 2012 season.