https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/john-elway-blames-colin-k...
> Not that it was hard to find: you can easily fire up a search engine and figure out that Elway talked to the 49ers about trading for Kaepernick, before the quarterback was released, back in April of 2016. [...]
> In other words, this is also not great for Elway [...] because it creates a pretty clear juxtaposition: the Broncos were interested in Kap before he began to protest and not so much after he began to protest.
Before last season he met with the Seahawks about the backup position and apparently wanted anywhere from $3-5 million to be the backup. There are very few teams that would waste that salary cap space for a backup QB, when that can pay for another player or two who can actually contribute to the games. The Seahawks declined signing him, and got a backup that only cost them $700k for the season.
It's hard to win a collusion case when you have job offers but you just don't like what they are paying.