WISCONSIN– (CNN) The Green Bay Packers are in a funk.
The Super Bowl hopes and dreams of pretty much the entire state of Wisconsin crashed into the turf along with Aaron Rodgers’ shoulder after the star Packers QB was hurt in Sunday’s game. He has a broken collarbone and may miss the rest of this season.
But Packers fan have the perfect replacement in mind — Colin Kaepernick.
Tracey Corder, a Packers fan from California, started a change.org petition addressed to Green Bay, urging the team to sign Kaepernick.
“Aaron Rodgers is possibly out for the rest of the season but there’s a Wisconsin-born QB who should be on our team!” the petition reads. “Lets makes sure the organization know we support Kaepernick to the Packers!”
It’s been signed more than 10,000 times.
Football phenom
Kaepernick became a football sensation five years ago, when he led the San Francisco 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII in just his second season. But he’s not playing in the NFL right now after he began protesting the National Anthem. During the 2016 NFL preseason, Kaepernick said he was compelled to kneel in part because of a spate of police-involved shootings that resulted in the deaths of black men, including Philando Castile and Alton Sterling.
The out-of-work quarterback recently filed a grievance against the NFL, saying the league’s owners were colluding to keep him out of the game.
But Kaepernick coming back to the NFL via the Pack isn’t such a crazy idea. Kaepernick is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and grew up a Packers fan.
Sportswriter Harry Lyles Jr. tweeted out a picture of what appears to be a young Colin Kaepernick standing in front of Lambeau Field, wearing a Brett Farve jersey.
But it’s not clear if the Packers are interested in Kaepernick. The team has not publicly responded to the petition, and head coach Mike McCarthy was miffed when a reporter asked about bringing on Kaepernick. McCarthy stressed that Rodgers’ backup, Brett Hundley, will be taking snaps for the near future.
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