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The 49ers face less controversy and more of a quarterback conundrum with the start of the 2021 league year. Instability under the modern NFL center is a potential death knell for front offices and coaches, and it’s next to impossible to win a Super Bowl. Instability has defined the quarterback position for the 49ers since head coach Kyle Shanahan took over in 2017, and the team must find out soon if they are to fight for the Super Bowls on a regular basis. To better find that stability, they should take a page from the Philadelphia Eagles team-building book.
At first glance, following the Eagles’ lead on anything doesn’t seem like a good idea given the uproar the franchise has undergone since winning the Super Bowl in 2017. However, they found themselves in the last offseason in a position similar to that of the 49ers. year.
Quarterback Carson Wentz was playing MVP-caliber football in 2017 in his second season in the NFL. He tore up his ACL at the end of this year, and wasn’t the same player in 2018 or 2019. While Wentz had a huge payday ahead, the Eagles didn’t needlessly hook their wagon to the former number 2 in the general classification. Instead, they admitted his game had deteriorated and used a second-round selection against quarterback Jalen Hurts in the 2020 draft.
That’s the route San Francisco needs to take in this year’s draft, regardless of how it feels about Garoppolo. At best, he’s a starter who can take a team to a Super Bowl. At worst, it is unavailable. This latter scenario requires a more solid save option than Nick Mullens or CJ Beathard.
Hurts ended up starting four games at the end of the year for the Eagles and showed enough promise that Philadelphia was ready to eat a $ 33.8 million dead cap to move Wentz for a pair of draft picks this off-season. Chances are, Philadelphia will use another high pick on a quarterback this year to compete with Hurts and provide them with more of a starting caliber player under center.
Considering the importance of the quarterback position, it’s worth using Day 1 or Day 2 picks on callers once or twice every few years until elite talent emerges.
The old adage “if you have two quarterbacks you don’t have a quarterback” may try to turn around, but the phrase doesn’t quite apply here. It works if a team has two quarterbacks that they can’t choose because they’re both bad. This is not suitable for a team with several high quality players in this position.
Having two quarterbacks that can start and help a team win is a significant advantage given the frequency of injuries in the NFL. Garoppolo specifically missed 23 of the 49ers’ last 48 regular season games. Their save situation this year essentially means that Garoppolo’s second sprained ankle ended his season. It might not have been the case had they picked a highly drafted quarterback as a replacement.
Plus, a second quarterback talented enough to win games in the NFL could turn out to be an asset down the line. Consider how the 49ers acquired Garoppolo. He was a second-round pick with two NFL starts under his belt and was treated for a second-round pick. If Philadelphia drafts a quarterback in 2021 and he becomes the starter, Hurts becomes a valuable trading chip for the Eagles.
The 49ers have gone through four different starting quarterbacks since Shanahan took over as head coach four seasons ago. They have a chance this offseason to reset their shift room with Mullens and Beathard both set to enter free agency. They have to do this with a choice of day 1 or day 2 they believe in. Then they have to do it again in 2022 if they decide to part ways with Garoppolo ahead of the draft.
This is the process they should repeat until they have a player who they think can help them compete for Super Bowls on a regular basis, and even then it’s worth having a better save than a player with the Mullens cap.
There isn’t too much of a cost to finding a long-term quarterback answer, and the Eagles last year showed why it’s important to have contingency plans on the roster, even if they already had a franchise flagman in place. The 49ers have less certainty about their QB and less of a financial commitment to the position. It may be unorthodox and counterintuitive, but San Francisco should start the process of adding high-caliber players below center until they find the long-term stability they’ve been lacking in recent years. years.
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