Joe Montana, arguably one of the two greatest quarterbacks in NFL history, doesn't think Colin Kaepernick is being blackballed by the NFL. It's not Kap's beliefs about social injustice, says Joe, it's how good he is.

The 49ers great told the Sporting News on Tuesday that it might take an injury for Kaepernick to play this season.

"In most cases, you look at Tim Tebow — a great guy and everybody was talking about him," Montana told reporter Kristian Dyer. "But what it comes down to is 40 percent completion or even in the low 50s, you can't win in the league with that. You won't be in the league very long."

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But Kap's completion rate last season was an un-Tebow-like 59.2 percent. Certainly not Tom Brady numbers, but not awful. In fact, it was nearly the same as it was during his best full seasons with the Niners in 2013 and 2014.

Yet, according to Montana, his inability to find a job "comes down to his play as much as anything."

Let's look at his play.

According to Nate Silver's Five Thirty Eight site, last season Kaepernick posted a Total Quarterback Rating of 55.2, which put him at 23rd of 30 qualified passers. Again, nothing to write home about, but not terrible either.

In fact, it's better than at least half the backups in the league, notes the Washington Post. That list includes Landry Jones, Case Keenum, Matt Barkley, Nick Foles, Scott Tolzien, Geno Smith, Paxton Lynch, Drew Stanton, Bryce Petty, Cardale Jones, Matt Schaub, Derek Anderson, Connor Cook, Brett Hundley, Ryan Mallett, Sean Mannion and Kellen Clemens.

As to the argument that Kaepernick is more a scrambling quarterback who achieved success with the read-option but doesn't fit with today's NFL offenses, which favor pocket QBs, he actually threw more from the pocket in 2017 and with significantly better results than he did from out of the pocket.

Five Thirty Eight found that since 1966, only one under-30 quarterback who had as good a year as Kaepernick's 2016 went unsigned the next year — Ed Rubbert, who played on the Washington Redskins' replacement team during the 1987 players strike before disappearing into the dustbin of pigskin history.

Back in June, Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll called Kaepernick "a starter in this league" right before the team signed Austin Davis, whose most recent NFL accomplishments include being cut by Cleveland and then by Denver.

Kaepernick's refusal to stand for the national anthem during games last season to protest social injustices sparked a nationwide controversy. Some players joined with him, while many politicians and fans chastised him.

But Montana told the Sporting News the quarterback's protests — which Kaepernick has since ended — aren't keeping him from getting a job.

"Everyone thinks it is the stance he took," the Hall-of-Famer said. "One of the things you don't look for is distractions in the locker room. You can go back to Bill Walsh and as soon as there were guys that weren't fitting in what he was looking for, it didn't matter how good you were. You weren't on the team for very long. You have to have people who want the same thing, fighting for the same thing and willing to put in the time."

So it's not Kap's stance, but it's the "distractions" — which of course were caused by the stance.

That would seem to contradict reports that Kaepernick's protests actually had the opposite effect — they brought the team closer together and galvanized it.

Montana seems to be implying that Kaepernick wasn't "fighting for the same thing" — presumably winning — or willing to "put in the time," which might be an allusion to a reported leak from the 49ers organization in June. An unnamed staffer supposedly said Kaepernick wouldn't "stay late at the facility during the season like many quarterbacks routinely do" and questioned the quarterback's work ethic.

"I want to put that to rest," 49ers general manager John Lynch said at the time.

"We wish Colin the best and I can tell everybody out there he very much is sincere in his interest to get back in this league, and I hope it works out for him."

It's clear that Colin Kaepernick is no Joe Montana and never will be, but that doesn't mean he isn't good enough to be a backup quarterback in the NFL. The numbers say he is.