There's no denying that Colin Kaepernick is one of the most enigmatic quarterbacks in all of the NFL. On one hand, he has undeniable arm talent mixed with his unbelievable running ability only to be mired by frightening inaccuracy and poor decision-making. Unfortunately, the inaccuracy and poor decisions have become a common theme in the young Kaepernick's play -- and he has regressed severely.

But is it all his fault? The great Frank Gore is aging and is an absolute shell of his old-self this season, Vernon Davis is MIA, and Michael Crabtree has been turned into a possession receiver. The 49ers offense has gone from a juggernaut that is a weekly threat to shred opposing defenses to scoring only 18.8 points per game this year, tied for sixth worst with a Washington team that has devolved into oblivion. Major understatement: that’s not good.

And it only gets worse.

Kaepernick: Stumbling Into Mediocrity

Here at numberFire, we quantify a player's ability by using our Net Expected Points (NEP) metric. NEP measures a player’s productivity based on how whether he performed above or below expectation on the many plays he's involved in. As you may expect, Colin Kaepernick has been astoundingly average this year, and his numbers reflect that.

Among the 38 quarterbacks who have thrown 140 or more passes this season, here's how Kaepernick stacks up against the rest of the NFL in Passing NEP and Passing NEP per pass, among other statistics.

While the passing numbers are substandard, what’s truly scary is how inefficient Kaepernick has been rushing this year. Running on designed reads or simply getting out of the pocket and improvising is one of the things that made Kaepernick so dynamic in 2012 and 2013. Kaepernick scored five rushing touchdowns in 2012, four in 2013, but hasn’t found the end zone with his legs once this season. While the 49ers are calling fewer designed runs this year, Kaepernick has not made the most of his rushing opportunities.

Among the six quarterbacks with 40 or more rushes this season, Colin Kaepernick is dead last in Rushing NEP and Rushing NEP per attempt:

While it’s nice to look at Kaepernick’s numbers this year, I think it’s important to remind everyone just how dynamic he was when he supplanted ProFootballFocus.com. For perspective, from 2012 until now, one of the best quarterbacks on play-action plays, Aaron Rodgers, boasts a 20-to-5 ratio.

San Francisco isn’t totally setting up Kaepernick for failure. He hasn’t been good this year, and some of the decisions he makes are inexcusable. But what's sort of perplexing is that the Niners were once very good at calling games towards Kaepernick’s strengths. He’s obviously great at play-action passing, but that only comes with the a solid running game and the threat of Kaepernick’s uncanny ability to get out of the pocket and extend drives. Both mechanisms have been sparsely exceptional this year.

To be quite honest, the blame needs to be equally spread around in San Francisco. Kaepernick hasn’t been playing well, but the 49ers really don't seem to be all that interested in calling games to their quarterback's strengths. They don’t let Kaepernick out of the pocket on designed reads, something he's torched NFL defenses with in the past.

The future is murkier than ever for Kaepernick. But maybe with some change in coaching over the offseason, new personnel, and a revitalized run game, Kaepernick will take a step forward in 2015 and put this year behind him.