Colin Kaepernick signed a million dollar deal -- but not to play football

Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been relatively quiet as the national anthem protest trend he started has spiraled out of control.

But, for those interested in his thoughts, Kaepernick will be publishing a book after signing a $1 million deal with Random House imprint One World.

Kaepernick had been meeting with publishers recently at the New York office of his talent agency, WME.

NFL aspirations fading

News of the book deal comes as it becomes more apparent that Kaepernick is unlikely to play in the NFL anytime soon. Despite a rash of severe quarterback injuries in the first half of the NFL season, no team has picked him up.

The reasons teams have given for not signing or considering Kaepernick have been mostly mundane and defensible, although Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians gave a strangely false response after his starting quarterback was injured Sunday.

Accusing the owners

His new role as an author doesn’t mean Kaepernick has given up on football, however. The quarterback recently filed a grievance against the league claiming NFL owners have colluded to keep him off a roster.

That will be a difficult allegation to prove, unless team personnel left a trail of communications indicating collusion. Kaepernick’s lawyers have begun requesting email and cellphone records from teams and NFL executives.

Public mistakes

Kaepernick's decision to stay mostly out of the public eye recently may be due to some high-profile missteps he took while in the limelight, like when he said he didn't vote in the presidential election because he didn't want to support a system of oppression, or when he wore a Fidel Castro shirt and praised Cuba's literacy rates.

He has continued to be active in community service, however, donating nearly $1 million to charitable organizations.