Lowell Cohn: 49ers understand high cost of a player’s departure

This Colin Kaepernick and Anthony Davis have in common. They both ran out on the 49ers.

Kaepernick ran out late ?last season. He got benched, decided his non-throwing shoulder was killing him, ?and shut down his season for surgery. Not a team player. More on Kaepernick in a moment.

Davis announced his retirement last June. He announced it so late the 49ers never could replace him at right tackle. He murdered the Niners’ offensive line. The 49ers pressed Erik Pears into service at right tackle, but he is a better guard than tackle, and the 49ers offensive line was dreadful. Not Pears’ fault.

Davis now says he had a concussion. I believe him. ?I am not questioning his injury. I am questioning his timing. He ruined the 49ers offensive line by waiting so long to retire. More on Davis in a moment.

This Kaepernick and Davis have in common. They are both loners in the 49ers locker room. Maybe “strangers” is the better word. Kaepernick we know had problems relating to his teammates last season. Davis usually sits by himself at his cubicle, and when he’s away from the team facility, spends enormous amounts of time tweeting. When he retires, he could become a sports writer. Or a playwright.

This Kaepernick and Davis don’t have in common. Kaepernick does not want to be a 49er. Davis does. Says he does.

An Insight into Kaepernick: He’s sore at the Niners for benching him. This is certainly a plausible interpretation ?of his actions - he wants ?to be a Jet, he wants the ?Niners to trade him, he ?wants out.

Forget that he got benched on merit - or demerit. His play was bad, he was having a crummy season. Lost the job to Blaine Gabbert - not exactly Joe Montana. He acted like he deserved the starting job by divine right. Jim Tomsula was so careful with Kaepernick - intimidated? - he told him in person he wouldn’t start. Cushioned the blow. Acted like Kaepernick was a deposed monarch.

And then after Gabbert did OK in his first start, Tomsula privately told Kaepernick yet again he wasn’t starting, ?although nothing had changed. He had not been the starter and he still wasn’t the starter.

How much sucking up to does one backup quarterback need?

Soon after that, Kaepernick cried uncle. And he’s still crying uncle. Like he’s above competing for the starting job. Like he’s morally offended to be thrown into a competition.

And in a way you can understand him. He never had to compete for anything in San Francisco. Jim Harbaugh anointed Kaepernick the starter when Alex Smith got hurt. An unusual move that seemed OK for a while but no longer seems OK in so many ways. You don’t bench a starter for an injury. Right now, Smith is a better quarterback than Kaepernick and is having a better career.

We must conclude Kaepernick doesn’t have the stomach for competing. Wants to be ceded the job and, if not, he’s out of here.

Question: Where would he go? Not Green Bay or New England or Carolina or Seattle or Arizona. I could go on. Elite teams have elite quarterbacks. More elite than Kaepernick is now. If the Niners trade him, he’ll go to a bottom feeder like the 49ers and he’ll have to compete with a Gabbert-like quarterback. Kaepernick suffers from daily delusions of grandeur.

An Insight into Davis: This was among the strangest encounters I’ve had with an athlete and I’ve had a million strange ones. It was Dec. 23, 2012, and the 49ers had just lost 42-13 in Seattle.

Near the very end of the game when it was clear the Niners would lose, Davis ran down the field after the play ended and hit Seahawks rookie cornerback Jeremy Lane and knocked him down. Then Davis hit Lane while he was down. Maybe Davis had a beef against Lane, but he was hardly subtle. The play was a run which had gone the other direction. Davis outweighed Lane by 130 pounds. The officials called a penalty on Davis and the league fined him $10,000. Which he deserved.

It was a pointless, silly play and in the postgame locker room I asked Davis why he did that. “I was doing my (expletive) job,” he proudly asserted in a loud, aggressive voice. I was going to ask if his job involved playing dirty, except Trent Baalke was standing right there. He waved his right hand at Davis, dismissed him the way you would dismiss a cranky child. Davis understood getting dismissed. Skulked away.

I looked at Baalke. I asked, “Is he representing your franchise well right now?” Baalke looked right past me like I was a drill sergeant and he was a private. He didn’t say a word. Verbally tapped out. He walked away. I wondered if that’s how the general manager should represent the franchise, but I didn’t say it. I like Baalke and sometimes we laugh together and sometimes he looks right past me.

I tell this story about Davis not to question his ability as a football player. It’s to put him into focus.

He’s one hell of a tackle and he makes the 49ers offensive line serious again. Can the Niners count on him? He left them in the lurch last season, did it on short notice - almost on a whim - and he could do it again. In the long term, he is more valuable to the team than Kaepernick. But will he play? Will he leave? Who is this guy?

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. Contact Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.