Last year's influx of young quarterbacks included a laundry list of precocious young rookies and one emergent second-year passer in San Francisco 49ers signal-caller Colin Kaepernick.
We might someday view the 2012 class of arms as the best of all time -- bumping the celebrated 1983 crop down a notch -- but it's Kaepernick, a second-round draft pick from 2011, who has ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski's heart aflutter.
"Colin Kaepernick could be one of the greatest quarterbacks ever," Jaworski, an ex-NFL quarterback himself, said Wednesday on ESPN. "I love his skill set. He throws with accuracy. And in today's NFL, you have to have mobility. He's got all those attributes."
Kaepernick isn't ready to go there yet.
"I'm working," he told reporters Wednesday, per The Associated Press. "To me, it's a great honor that he said that, (I'm) very flattered by it. But at the same time, I haven't played a full season yet."
Jaworski's quarterback assessments are carefully built off hundreds of hours of film study -- he's highly respected -- but he's going to find opposition to his Kaepernick reverie. When Gregg Rosenthal unpacked his list of the 10 greatest quarterbacks under 25, Kaepernick landed at No. 3, below Robert Griffin III at No. 2 and Andrew Luck at No. 1.
The "best ever" chatter for any newbie is premature, but Jaworski's heady meditations on Kaepernick are noted.
I'll throw my hat in the ring for Luck, but plenty believe RGIII is the future. You've got your Russell Wilson crowd, too. These young passers have a chance to change the way we think and feel about the quarterback position.
Indeed, they already have.
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