Gannon on Kaepernick: “I’d like to see him speed it up a little bit.”

Rich Gannon answered questions about Colin Kaepernick Tuesday afternoon on 957 The Game. Here is a transcript.

Q: If there is one thing you’d like to see Kaepernick improve on between now and the end of the season, what is it?

GANNON: “I just think playing a little faster. You watch him go through his progressions….he’s a young quarterback, but if you watch the Bradys and the Mannings and the Breeses the Rodgerses, it is bam, bam, bam — the ball is out. Boom, boom, boom. Quick reads, quick decisions, quick footwork. I’d like to see him speed it up a little bit, a little more sense of urgency. You see it sometimes, and other times he’s a split-second late. To me, that’s the one thing I like to see.”

Q: How did you feel about doing press conferences when you were a quarterback?

GANNON: “If I had to do it over again, I would have spent more time earlier in my career learning how to do it. Not that I didn’t take it seriously enough, but doing a better job of it in terms of…”

Q: Why?

GANNON: “Because I think it’s important. I think you’re the face of the franchise. How many times have you seen Peyton Manning do a post-game press conference where he stands in front of his locker with a torn t-shirt, a hat and looking all scruffy? He always makes sure he goes and showers and puts a nice suit on and stands in front of the microphone and looks like a professional. Tim Brown was that way. You’ve got to be able to take it seriously. You’ve got a brand. You’ve got an image. You’re the face of the franchise. It’s an important part of the responsibility – the production meetings, the conference calls, dealing with the local media – I think it’s something you should do and do well and have some fun with it. That’s the one thing. I did a much better job of it later in my career. I was a pretty serious player, but I tried to have some fun with it.

“Colin’s a very serious guy. You learn as you go that you try to have some fun with this and not be so serious. It sounds so simple, and yet you go out and play a tough game and you lose and someone writes something really negative. It doesn’t feel good. You already feel bad that you lost and you didn’t play well, now you’ve got to read about it all week and it can really affect how you handle yourself toward the media. As I got older, I stopped reading the papers. I’m not going to have things bring me down. I’m going to find a way to be positive.”

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