San Francisco 49ers: How Will Colin Kaepernick Develop in 2014?

How good will Colin Kaepernick be next season? There’s no single player who will impact the fate of the 2014 San Francisco 49ers more than their newly extended quarterback, so figuring out what to expect from him is crucial to predicting how the team will perform this upcoming season.

Considering Kaepernick only has 23 starts under his belt, there’s a lot of potential variance in what we could possibly expect from him next season. At the high end, he is as low a 22-1 pick to win the league MVP, per Odds Checker.

On the other end of the spectrum, it’s true that Kaepernick’s numbers dropped off last season, thanks in large part to injuries to his offensive weapons. He has not yet developed into the sort of quarterback who can succeed regardless of the talent around him. He’s been referred to as a one-read, “remedial” quarterback by some, including ESPN’s Trent Dilfer. He clearly has a step or two more to take as a passer before becoming an elite quarterback.

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

The situation is set up for some improvement in 2014. He’ll likely have a full year of a healthy Michael Crabtree, along with the addition of Stevie Johnson to augment his receiving corps. Offensive coordinator Greg Roman has hinted that the team will pass more, indicating a larger role in the offense for Kaepernick. He’ll also have another full season of experience under his belt, as well as more offseason practice and workouts.

One way to try to estimate how much improvement Kaepernick will make is by looking at historical players who had similar seasons to his 2013 year and seeing how they improved the next season.  On the macro scale, similar quarterbacks tend to develop in the same ways. While there are always outliers on the individual level, knowing how similar players have developed can give us a baseline for Kaepernick’s odds.

To do so, I went back to 1990 and looked at quarterbacks between the ages of 24 and 28. I then used a modified version of Football Outsiders’ similarity scores to figure out which quarterbacks had the most similar seasons to Kaepernick, adjusting the numbers to suit his particular play style. This helps us toss out unrealistic comparisons; it’s just as unhelpful to compare Kaepernick to Peyton Manning as it is to compare him to Blaine Gabbert.

Here are the 16 seasons that ended up the most similar to Kaepernick’s 2013 season:

Name	Year	Cmp	Att	Cmp%	Yds	TD	INT	Rush Att	Rush Yds	TD
C. Kaepernick	2013	243	416	58.4%	3,197	21	8	92	524	4
Jay Cutler	2010	261	432	60.4%	3,274	23	16	50	232	1
Steve McNair	2001	264	431	61.3%	3,350	21	12	75	414	5
Mark Brunell	1997	264	435	60.7%	3,281	18	7	48	257	2
Roethlisberger	2008	281	469	59.9%	3,301	17	15	34	101	2
Cunningham	1990	271	465	58.3%	3,466	30	13	118	942	5
Russell Wilson	2012	252	393	64.1%	3,118	26	10	94	489	4
D. McNabb	2003	275	478	57.5%	3,216	16	11	71	335	3
David Carr	2004	285	466	61.2%	3,531	16	14	73	299	0
D. McNabb	2001	285	493	57.8%	3,233	25	12	82	482	2
Alex Smith	2011	274	445	61.4%	3,144	17	5	52	179	2
D. Culpepper	2003	295	454	65.0%	3,479	25	11	73	422	4
S. Humphries	1992	263	454	57.9%	3,356	16	18	28	79	4
Steve McNair	1998	289	492	58.7%	3,228	15	10	77	559	4
Philip Rivers	2006	284	460	61.7%	3,388	22	9	48	49	0
Philip Rivers	2007	277	460	60.2%	3,152	21	15	29	33	1
Chris Miller	1991	220	413	53.3%	3,103	26	18	32	229	0
Average	NA	271	453	59.8%	3,289	21	12	62	320	2

Even with the adjustments, it’s hard to find players who rush quite as much as Kaepernick does, because he’s on the forefront of a new style of quarterback play—only Randall Cunningham and Russell Wilson had more attempts than Kaepernick’s 92. On a per-pass and per-rush basis, however, these players all fall fairly close to Kaepernick’s numbers last year.

All in all, however, it’s not a bad list of comparables. Only David Carr and Stan Humphries failed to make the Pro Bowl in their careers. Steve McNair was the NFL MVP in 2003, and Randall Cunningham was the first-team All Pro quarterback in 1998. You’re not seeing any sure-fire Hall of Famers on the list, but Cunningham, McNair, Roethlisberger, Brunell, McNabb and Rivers have all had enviable careers.

How did the players develop the year after? There are a couple of asterisks to look at before showing those numbers:

• Jay Cutler’s 2011 season was cut short by a fractured thumb, and he only started 10 games.
• Randall Cunningham tore his ACL in the first game of the 1991 season.
• Donovan McNabb broke his ankle in 2002, limiting him to 10 games.
• Alex Smith’s concussion in the 2012 season led to Colin Kaepernick’s arrival as a starter in the first place.
• Stan Humphries missed time with injuries in the 1993 season, limiting him to 10 starts.
• Steve McNair hurt his back in the 1999 season, and he missed five games.
• Chris Miller suffered from concussions between 1992 and 1994, missing significant time.

While injuries can and do happen, it’s not really accurate to say that Kaepernick has a 45 percent chance of missing time due to injuries, nor is it fair to take the injury-depleted statistics of those seven seasons and using them to compare.

That leaves us with nine Year N+1 seasons untouched that we can use for comparison. I’ll also look at the next fully healthy season for the other seven quarterbacks as well, under the more flawed assumption that they would have picked up where they left off the year afterward.

Name	Year	Cmp	Att	Cmp%	Yds	TD	INT	Rush Att	Rush Yds	TD
D. Culpepper	2004	379	548	69.2%	4,717	39	11	88	406	2
Roethlisberger	2009	312	478	66.6%	4,328	26	12	40	82	2
Philip Rivers	2008	312	478	65.3%	4,009	34	11	31	84	0
D. McNabb	2004	300	469	64.0%	3,875	31	8	41	220	3
Steve McNair	2002	301	492	61.2%	3,387	22	15	82	440	3
Russell Wilson	2013	257	407	63.1%	3,357	26	9	96	539	1
Philip Rivers	2007	277	460	60.2%	3,152	21	15	29	33	1
Mark Brunell	1998	208	354	58.8%	2,601	20	9	49	192	0
David Carr	2005	256	423	60.5%	2,488	14	11	56	308	1
Average	NA	292	460	63.5%	3,546	26	11	57	256	1
Alex Smith	2013	308	508	60.6%	3,313	23	7	76	431	1
D. McNabb	2003	275	478	57.5%	3,216	16	11	71	335	3
S. Humphries	1994	264	453	58.3%	3,033	17	12	19	19	0
Jay Cutler	2012	255	434	58.5%	3,033	19	14	41	233	0
Steve McNair	2000	248	396	62.6%	2,847	15	13	72	403	0
Cunningham	1992	233	384	60.7%	2,775	19	11	85	549	5
Chris Miller	1995	232	405	57.3%	2,623	18	15	22	67	0
Average	NA	278	450	61.8%	3,308	23	12	56	271	1

The best-case scenario here is pretty clear. Daunte Culpepper took a huge step forward in 2004, leading the league in both completions and yards. It’s a season entirely outside of his career norms—an outlier among outliers.

Even without Culpepper’s crazy year, however, there are quite a few great seasons here. Roethlisberger and Rivers both trumped 4,000 yards, though honestly, Roethlisberger’s year isn’t as good as it appears, thanks to the sheer volume he had to put up those numbers.

Paul Sancya/Associated Press

McNabb, McNair and Wilson also put up great years out of this sample set. I think any of those stat lines would be accepted as a big step forward for Kaepernick in the 2014 season. All three could use their legs, much like Kaepernick does. More importantly, all had their completion percentage up above 60 percent. McNabb and Wilson had more than eight yards per attempt, as well, which would represent a slight step up for Kaepernick’s numbers. That sort of season is probably what 49ers fans should hope for, in terms of development.

Most of the bad seasons came a year after suffering an injury, but the worst fully healthy season there belongs to David Carr. It’s very rarely a good thing when he shows up on your list of comparable players.

However, Kaepernick has an advantage Carr didn’t have in Houston—a functioning offensive line.  In 2005, Carr was sacked 68 times—that’s more than four sacks every game. By comparison, Kaepernick was sacked 39 times last season, which is just over half as much. Having players like Joe Staley and Mike Iupati keeping defenders at bay can do nothing but help a quarterback’s development.

So, with all this data, what sort of season are we expecting from Kaepernick in 2014?

PHIL COALE/Associated Press

I think the best case to look at, when all is said and done, is Steve McNair's development. Like Kaepernick, McNair didn’t get a full season of starting experience until his third year in the league, and he never had a ton of gross yardage. Instead, McNair found ways to beat people with both his arm and his legs. His arm matured as he got more experience in the NFL, balancing out his contributions on the ground and through the air.

I think we’ll see Kaepernick’s rush totals take a step back in 2014, while his passing numbers take a corresponding step forward. Just looking at the quarterbacks who have had similar seasons in the past 15 years, it would be an upset if Kaepernick didn’t similarly improve entering his fourth year in the league.

My projections? If I had to guess now, I’d say Kaepernick’s stat line might look something like this:

Year	Cmp	Att	Cmp%	Yds	TD	INT	Rush Att	Rush Yds	TD
2013	243	416	58.4%	3,197	21	8	92	524	4
2014	260	420	61.9%	3,400	26	7	85	420	2

Hoping for a burst into the 4,000-yard range seems a little naive, considering that this is still primarily a running team. We’d be talking about adding something like five extra passes every game to San Francisco’s total, and a 20 percent increase in pass attempts seems unrealistic. Instead, look for Kaepernick to take a step forward, rather than a huge leap, as he continues his development.

Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers.  Follow him @BryKno on twitter.