The Facts: Following up on the ongoing story. ... An NFL source indicated to me today that team president Paraag Marathe and Kaepernick’s representatives had a solid start to talks that could eventually lead to a rich new extension for the 49ers QB.

Diehards Line: According to San Francisco Mercury News columnist Tim Kawakami, there are many miles to go on this and the "could eventually" portion of the sentence above should not be overlooked. But for now, Kawakami reports that both sides seem to have entered into this optimistically and over the weekend provided each other good reasons to keep going on it. Kaepernick said during Super Bowl week that he’s open to striking a balance between what he wants and what’s best for the team salary structure, and from what Kawakami has heard, nothing said over the weekend contradicted that. It remains to be seen what Kaepernick's view of "balance" is. Does that mean he'll ask for $20 million per instead of $22 million? Or does it mean he’ll talk about $16-17 million with steps to get him up to $20 million. We'll see. Kawakami suggests that $15 to $16 million is the floor for an average salary here. We'll see how long it takes them to get there.