SANTA CLARA — Is he really with them? Or does he still want out? His teammates still have to wonder.

After all the tumult of the 49ers’ offseason, Colin Kaepernick starts training camp this weekend in the same position he found himself seven months ago. He is not the starting quarterback.

Instead, we are led to believe, he and Blaine Gabbert are in competition for the No. 1 job. Kaepernick was not traded, as some believed he would be. Kaepernick instead will be part of the Chip Kelly Experiment In Awesome Offensive Terror.

Whatever that means.

It could mean that Kelly and Kaepernick hit it off and the 49ers offense takes off into a new and fabulous era. It could mean that Gabbert wins the job and Kaepernick stands quietly on the sideline. It could mean that Gabbert and Kaepernick alternate. Who knows?

Either way, Kaepernick’s biggest struggle may be convincing his fellow 49ers that he’s definitely all-in on the program after several months of allowing his anonymous surrogates (likely agents and family members) to murmur about the quarterback’s dissatisfaction and desire to leave the Bay Area. Other players in the locker room could be excused for staring down at his locker and puzzling about whether Kaepernick is really all-in and on their side.

The events of last winter linger. After allowing his name to be discussed in a deal with the Denver Broncos that never happened — indeed, allowing his representative to try and broker such a deal — Kaepernick has some locker room chemistry to reformulate. His reputation and image within the NFL’s player fraternity depends on it.

Let’s start, though, by trying to figure out what went wrong in the first place. The answer may not be as complicated or as soul-searching or convoluted as some think. Here’s the version that makes the most sense:

Kaepernick is a unique NFL creature who was molded and sustained and championed by former 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh. But as soon as Harbaugh’s own 49ers life went sideways in 2014 during a messy and acrimonious feud with the team’s front office, Kaepernick fell out of his own comfort zone. And he never regained it.

Nagging injuries didn’t help, either. But by the middle of the 2015 season — with guardian/whisperer Harbaugh moved on to Michigan and the 49ers’ offensive line in ragged patchwork mode — Kaepernick was a discombobulated shell of his former quarterbacking self.

Benched in Week 9

Finally, in week 9 of the 2015 season, Kaepernick was benched in favor of Gabbert. A month later, Kaepernick decided to undergo surgery on his non-throwing shoulder and shut himself down for the season. This was followed by the trade request.

Kaepernick kept his mouth shut through the entire drama. His only public words occurred after the Denver discussions had no resolution. During a 49ers minicamp in early June, he held a news conference and didn’t say much.

“I really don’t want to get into specifics about what happened or why things happened,” Kaepernick said. “At this point, everything is football and I’m a 49er.”

In other words, we’ll still have to keep guessing what this is all about. He’s not going to help anyone understand. But if you believe his people, Kaepernick is peeved because, before the 2014 season, he had agreed to a team-friendly contract that included flexible money terms. There was an alleged promise that 49ers owner Jed York and general manager Trent Baalke would use the extra funds on better players to beef up the offense. This did not occur.

There were also gossipy murmurs about Kaepernick being isolated and uninvolved with his teammates, reported by national television network voices with no attribution. Was this gossip from the 49ers’ front office? Or from agents who represented 49ers players? Or from 49ers players themselves? Ultimately, that doesn’t matter. Gossip is the fortified malt liquor of NFL “media coverage” in the 21st century, given the numerous 24/7 online sites and networks and social media.

Quarterbacks will always be the primary focus of that gossip, simply because they are the most visible humans in the country’s most popular sports league.

Successes, failures

Kaepernick’s 49ers legacy, so far, is of triumphs under Harbaugh, travails without him. The former coach did have a way with the quarterback — and a way of handling him with kid gloves, according to some of Kaepernick’s teammates. If not expressing open resentment, some of those players did shake their heads at what they perceived was special treatment of the quarterback.

One example: Traditionally, the 49ers spend the night before home games at a local hotel to facilitate concentration and preparation. The team then rides a bus from the hotel to Levi’s Stadium. But as a courtesy to the players, the 49ers’ staff arranges for the players’ personal vehicles to be delivered from the hotel to Levi’s Stadium during the game. That way, the players can drive directly home.

However, in November 2014, the 49ers also played an “away” game in Oakland against the Raiders. Kaepernick went to Harbaugh and asked if the Levi’s procedure would apply: Could Kaepernick’s car be delivered to the Coliseum so that he could drive home following the game?

Harbaugh said yes, it could be arranged. But the coach evidently never offered the same convenience to the other players. Which meant that after the 49ers had suffered an ignominious 24-13 loss, the other players trudged toward the team bus in the Coliseum parking lot for a long ride back across the Bay … and looked up to see Kaepernick stride toward his own car and cruise home. Some veterans were not pleased. Coincidentally or not, the 49ers also lost their next two games and fell out of the playoff race.

In fairness, the incident was not entirely Kaepernick’s doing. He may not have known he was the only player receiving the car-delivery favor. And perhaps Harbaugh had a reason to make the call the way he did. But the episode fed into a general narrative by a certain segment of the roster about Kaepernick’s demeanor and whether he could be considered a true team leader. Gossip also leaked to the network tattletales that Kaepernick liked to put on his headphones and tune out the rest of the locker room. He didn’t often socialize with his offensive linemen as other NFL quarterbacks do. That also played into the narrative.

Started to retreat

None of this would have mattered if the 49ers had kept winning. There have been numerous successful NFL quarterbacks with different types of personalities, from shy withdrawn types to anti-social characters to goofy jokers. But when Kaepernick’s play slipped on the field and he had trouble adjusting as opposing defenses found ways to counter him, the situation compounded. Kaepernick, never an open book during his media interactions, further retreated into his shell. The shell game eventually morphed into the trade demand.

It’s too bad. By all accounts, Kaepernick can be a generous soul with a special affection for kids — and especially children with heart conditions. They’re the beneficiary of his largesse at a summer camp in the Central Valley, where he lends personal and financial support. Many of Kaepernick’s tattoos are of a biblical nature. He grew up in Turlock, following the 49ers. On the day he was drafted in 2011, Kaepernick was so excited that he drove from Turlock to the team headquarters in Santa Clara to meet team executives. He was eager and ready to take on the league.

In an ideal world, Kaepernick will win back his starting job, take the team back to the Super Bowl and win the game, then spend his entire career in a 49ers uniform. The NFL is seldom an ideal world. Training camp practices begin Sunday.

Read Mark Purdy’s blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/purdy. Contact him at mpurdy@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/MercPurdy.