Chip Kelly says Colin Kaepernick will start for 49ers against Bills

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) will earn his first start of the season in Week 6. (AP)

The wait for Colin Kaepernick to play this season is over.

The San Francisco 49ers quarterback, who has been held back by injuries following three offseason surgeries, will start Sunday’s road game against the Buffalo Bills, head coach Chip Kelly said on Wednesday.

“We’re gonna make a move at quarterback and start Colin this week,” Kelly said at his Tuesday morning news conference, adding that he made the move early in the week so Kaepernick could get reps with the No. 1 offense.

Blaine Gabbert won the starting job out of training camp but aside from some decent scrambling has largely struggled. He has thrown five touchdown passes against six interceptions, the 49ers (1-4) have lost four in a row, so his benching isn’t a shock.

There had been whispers of No. 3 QB Christian Ponder perhaps being in line to get some action. Kelly had hinted recently that Kaepernick was not fully healthy — although that makes little sense given that he received a few garbage-time snaps (all handoffs) in the Week 1 blowout win over the Los Angeles Rams and has Gabbert’s game-day backup each week so far.

Kaepernick took only a handful of snaps in the preseason. Now he faces a defense that has made gradual improvements and a secondary that’s considered one of the best in the NFL, and he does so with few quality offensive weapons at his disposal.

If Kaepernick succeeds under these circumstances, it would be hard for Kelly not to keep him as the starter for the remainder of the season. Kaepernick and the 49ers have the Bills game and a home game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before the Week 8 bye. It’s thereafter that the 49ers’ schedule gets noticeably tougher.

There’s also the matter of Kaepernick’s contract. It has been reported in recent week that he and the 49ers are renegotiating a reworked deal that would get rid of the injury guarantee in Kaepernick’s contract for his $14.5 million salary in 2017. But Kelly shot down the idea that the decision to start him had any financial bearing.

“It’s got nothing to do with his contract,” Kelly said. “It’s a football decision.”

The talk about Kaepernick to this point the past few months has centered largely on his pre-game anthem protests, which started in the preseason, became a national story and a topic of huge debate. But the quarterback, who is seeking to revive his once-promising career, can change that narrative if he turns in a good game in his first regular-season start in nearly a year.