Colin Kaepernick is probably not going to be the San Francisco 49ers quarterback next season. This has less to do with his refusal to stand for the national anthem and more to do with the fact he will be a free agent this winter and the Niners need to find themselves a quarterback around whom they can build.

But he should be somebody’s quarterback in 2017. In a league filled with retreads, flops and never-really-were’s surely there is a place for a 29-year-old near Super Bowl winner who can beat teams with both his arm and legs. In what has become an audition for his next job, Kaepernick continues to show glimpses of why he was once-seen as one of the NFL’s best young quarterbacks. Sunday he nearly led a dreadful 49ers team past the Miami Dolphins in a game they had no business winning. On a final spring to the end zone, he came up a yard short as time expired in a 31-24 loss.

This came after he threw for 296 yards and three touchdowns while running for 113 on a 49ers team that looks as if it has packed up for the season.

There aren’t 31 better quarterbacks in the NFL than Kaepernick. The combined running and throwing skills that once made him nearly-impossible to stop, taking the 49ers to one Super Bowl appearance and leaving them just short of another are still there. Under Niners coach Chip Kelly, he seems to have found whatever it was that he lost in recent seasons. He is increasingly confident and making better decisions than he did in his two-year decline that might well have forced San Francisco to cut him were it not for the six-year $114m contract he signed before the 2014 season.

“As much as I’d like to think I can jump right back in and be 100% on top of my game it was something that took a little bit to get into a rhythm, get comfortable with everything that’s happening within the offense,” Kaepernick recently told 49ers.com. “It’s coming more and more every week that I feel comfortable with what’s going on, why we’re calling plays, how we’re trying to get things done and be able to build on those.”

In the six starts since he took over as the team’s starter on 16 October, Kaepernick has thrown for 1,440 yards and 10 touchdowns against just three interceptions. He has run for another 373 yards and a score.

Obviously, his market will not be huge next winter. NFL coaches hate distractions and Kaepernick’s four-month anthem protest and accompanying pleas to talk about issues such as police brutality and the lack of economic opportunities for African Americans will turn off many teams. But there is also this about Kaepernick: he is bothered by none of the hate that has poured his way. Last week, he debated Fidel Castro with Miami Herald writer Armando Salguero, whose family escaped Cuba when he was a child. In the back-and-forth, Kaepernick denounced Castro’s regime but praised some elements of the ruler’s tenure. Salguero wrote a column, that tore Kaepernick apart and struck a nerve in a community that has long despised Castro and joyously celebrated his death this weekend. Kaepernick was booed heavily when he took the field at Sun Life Stadium on Sunday. And yet Kaepernick seemed to thrive as the boos poured down.

After the game, Kaepernick said he had praised Castro’s education and universal health care systems while denouncing his oppression. These are not topics many coaches want their quarterbacks addressing in their postgame press conferences. But his talent will undoubtedly attract others.

The 49ers are awful right now. Were it not for the Browns, San Francisco would be the league’s worst. Kaepernick has yet to win as a starter and yet as he improves with each week, the Niners losing has less and less to do with him. He can help a better team win games. If this is indeed a tryout for next season, someone will have noticed.

Quote of the week

“It’s been a long 12 weeks.”

For the second straight week the quote in this space belongs to someone from the winless Browns. This time it’s coach Hue Jackson whose NFL resume says he deserves much better than this 0-12 season. He showed up to his press conference nearly a half hour after the game ended and seemed emotionally spent. He called the year so far “the hardest thing ever,” and it is tough not to feel for a coach who is making do with an inexperienced team with a flimsy offensive line that has allowed a rotation of quarterbacks to be injured. He called this team “a reboot” from previous Cleveland disappointments and acts as if he is certain they are building something with the Browns. Even if building means losing every game this year.

Quote of the week II

“We’ve got the best kicker in the league, there’s no doubt about it. But we’ve got to keep the young kind humble.”

Ravens coach John Harbaugh rarely has to make tough decisions with his kicker Justin Tucker. Tucker has been magnificent in a year when many of his peers are declining. On Sunday, Tucker hit three field goals of more than 50 yards (52, 57, 54) in Baltimore’s 19-14 victory over Cincinnati and became the first player in NFL history to make three field goals of more than 50 yards in a half. Tucker also hit a more pedestrian 36-yarder as the Ravens moved to 6-5 and a first-place tie in the AFC North. Tucker is still perfect this season, hitting all 23 of his field goals and 14 of his extra points, and has 34 straight dating back to last season, the sixth-longest streak in league history.

Fantasy player of the week

The story of Drew Brees and his four touchdown passes on Sunday is really a story about bitterness, resentment and revenge. The Saints’ former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was returning to the Superdome for the first time since he helped to get New Orleans coach Sean Payton suspended for a year in the debacle that became known as Bountygate. Payton never really did like Williams much, even though Williams designed the team’s swashbuckling defense that helped the Saints win a Super Bowl. The team has never fully recovered from Bountygate after Williams long moved onto the Rams. To show how much those old wounds still simmer consider the zeal with which Brees and the Saints went after a good Rams defense. Brees was 28-for-36 for 310 yards, New Orleans had 555 yards of offense and receiver Willie Snead threw a 50-yard touchdown pass to add the final dagger in a 49-21 win.

Stat of the week

Seven. The number of touchdown passes thrown by players who had never thrown one in the NFL. By this time of year one would not expect this number to be this high, especially with the No1 pick in the previous spring’s draft involved. But a wonderful confluence of solid handling by Rams coaches, an inopportune injury to Jay Cutler and some trickery led to scoring passes from three players with zeros in the touchdown column on their career record. Three of these touchdowns were thrown by Los Angeles’s Jared Goff, the top draft choice who had sat all season until he was ready before last week’s game against Miami. Another three came from Chicago’s Matt Barkley who stepped in for Cutler and made up for four years of a touchdown-less career in one unforgettable afternoon. He would have had a fourth had receiver Josh Bellamy not dropped one wide open in the end zone late in the game. And so he finished the day with three TDs and a 27-21 loss to Tennessee.

Oh and did we mention Willie Snead’s touchdown pass? It would have been our Gif of the week were it not for ...

Gif of the week

Vontze Burfict continues his horrible season with this embarrassing flop.

Fine himhttps://t.co/npJRReSV2yhttps://t.co/dIdIfSLUbr — Jason McIntyre (@jasonrmcintyre) November 27, 2016

And they say soccer players flop.

Vontaze Burfict was always a risk that the Bengals ignored. He came out of the draft with warnings attached about off-field problems and a tendency to pick up personal fouls in games. He went from a possible first-round pick to undrafted. Cincinnati took a chance on him, believing in his talent – which is outstanding – but he has continued to perplex with his behavior. He missed this season’s first three games after a suspension for rough play in the playoffs and last week he flipped off fans. Sunday he appeared to give a cheap shove to Ravens receiver Steve Smith who reacted as any player would in pushing back. But surely neither Smith nor the officials expected to see a reaction quite like Burfict’s: a flop that could land him a role on Broadway when his playing days are done.

Elsewhere around the league

-- Tom Brady tied Peyton Manning for the most victories by a quarterback when he won his 200th game as the Patriots came back to beat the Jets 22-17. This despite again losing tight end Rob Gronkowski, who left with a back injury. Gronkowski, who missed the previous game with a chest injury, had no catches when he departed.

-- Seattle did nothing offensively in Tampa Bay, putting up just 245 yards and failing to score a touchdown in a 14-5 loss to the Buccaneers. Russell Wilson was the Seahawks’ leading rusher with 80 yards ... to go with his 151 passing and two interceptions.

-- Atlanta continued to impress with a 38-19 pounding of the Cardinals. Matt Ryan was 26-for-34 for 269 yards as he dominated the league’s top defense. Arizona fall to 4-6-1 and are looking less and less like a playoff team after winning the NFC West a year ago.

–- Buffalo kept their playoff hopes alive by beating Jacksonville 28-21 behind 103 rushing yards and two touchdowns from LeSean McCoy.