No, Colin Kaepernick, you're not worth $18M

And, Colin Kaepernick, you likely won't be worth it a year from now earlier, no matter how badly you want it.

You're a below-average quarterback in terms of passing skills:

Kaepernick completed 58.4 percent of his passes last season, which is worst among the top 10 quarterbacks in Football Outsiders' QB efficiency metric. And even when you factor in dropped passes, Keapernick's accuracy percentage (as measured by ProFootballFocus) is 69.3, ahead of only EJ Manuel, Joe Flacco, Geno Smith and Eli Manning.

When Kaepernick faces pressure, his completion percentage drops to 43.6 and his accuracy percentage drops to 55.1, last among all NFL starters.

That's despite having a bevy of high-talent receiving targets, including Anquan Boldin, Michael Crabtree, and Vernon Davis, plus a top-tier running back in Frank Gore.

You say Jay Cutler gets that much? Fine, let's see how well, or poorly, you would do with his options.

As for the other "comps" from the pull quote, we've already seen Flacco isn't the same without Boldin. Eli's not the same as of old, and won't have fake Super Bowl gear to hawk, until he gets better receivers, too.

In today's QB world, Kaep might be worth $12 million. In today's QB world, the Niners investing a draft choice on a QB, in the top half of the draft, might also be worth something.