SF Chronicle 49ers Insider: We've Seen the Future: It's Name is Colin Kaepernick

By Art Spander
49ers Insider, San Francisco Chronicle iPad App

We have seen the future and it’s unflappable, uncatchable and wears No. 7. Colin Kaepernick is football’s new wave, a player who has his coach in thrall, opposing defenses in confusion and the 49ers in the NFC Championship.

Some quarterbacks run for their life, to escape. Kaepernick runs for records. And Saturday night, in San Francisco’s 45-31 win over the Green Bay Packers at the Stick in the NFC divisional playoff, he set two.

The game we used to know is being altered forever by signal callers just as apt to call upon themselves as the halfback or fullback who lines up behind them.

Magicians without a cape but with an innate sense of where to go. Or where to throw.

The attention went to Robert Griffin III, until his injury, and Russell Wilson, both first-round picks. Runners who were passers, passers who were runners. Even Andrew Luck is elusive, adding to his talent.

Kaepernick is no less the athlete and the leader. That he was drafted in the second round was an oversight that he won’t forget, but for the 49ers an opportunity they won’t regret.

“It’s a great team victory,” was the expected Harbaugh response when asked if Kaepernick’s brilliance justified the coach’s decision to use him.

It was also a great individual performance. He threw an early interception for a touchdown, a "pick six" the announcers call it. Then he threw the Packers for a loop.

Send out the bureau of missing quarterbacks. Green Bay still is trying to find out where he went.

Kaepernick’s first NFL playoff game was a mad dash to greatness, not to mention a reaffirmation of his coach, Jim Harbaugh, who didn’t so much take a chance on Kaep as pull back the curtain to show others what Harbaugh already guessed: Football is about to take a step forward. In Kaep’s situation, a very quick step.

“He’s got keys that he’s reading,” said Harbaugh. “It’s the read option. It’s a give read, or it’s a pull and run it himself.”

Kaepernick’s 181 yards were both the most rushing for a quarterback in NFL playoff history and the most for any Niner player in playoff history. He also completed 17 of 31 passes for 263 yards and two touchdowns. Then he went home and fed his pet tortoise.

To steal from that movie title, catch him if you can. Green Bay couldn’t.

There have been mobile quarterbacks, Fran Tarkenton, Michael Vick, Steve Young, way back Billy Kilmer, but Kaepernick keeps the other team off balance as nobody did or does.

The Packers would drop back and he would sweep through or around. The Packers would move in, and he would throw.

The rule of thumb, the old-school thinking, is that running quarterbacks have a short career. Harbaugh, a non-running quarterback in his day, makes his own rules. And his own choices.

There was nothing wrong with Alex Smith. Colin Kaepernick simply had more right. And more speed. Whoosh. A quarterback who can move like that gives a team a back who’s not in the defense’s thinking but definitely was in the Niners’ game plan.

The Pistol was the offense created at Nevada by Chris Ault, a hybrid of the shotgun and the single back. Kaepernick ran for 4,000 yards and passed for 9,000 in Nevada’s Pistol, but the skeptics didn’t think it would work in the NFL. Nor did they think Kaepernick would star in the NFL. Wrong on both counts.

“I saw a lot of great qualities about (Colin) in college,” said Harbaugh. As Stanford coach, he saw a lot of Luck, who at times he turned into a receiver. Versatility comes to the fore.

Harbaugh said the Niner game plan went heavy on the Pistol and on Kaepernick. “Both handing the ball off and running and play action,” explained the coach.

“We’re pretty multi-dimensional from that formation.”

Pretty unstoppable too.

“From what we see in practice,” said Niners linebacker Patrick Willis, “and from what we see in the game, you see a quarterback run the way (Kaepernick) runs, that’s unbelievable . . . It amazes me. It wows me.

“Credit goes to the whole offense to have a (running back) like Frank Gore, who people have to account for. And then Kaep’s doing what he’s doing. And before you know it (the opposition) doesn’t know which one to go for. And both of them are running wild, which they did (Saturday).”

The other quarterback, Aaron Rodgers of the Packers, the Cal kid who wanted to be a 49er, watched Kaepernick in awe.

“He was running all over the field,” said Rodgers. “He’s big, strong, athletic, throws the ball well and runs the ball extremely well. We didn’t really have a whole lot of answers for him.”

Maybe there are no answers.