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SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Without any practice and after learning that it was starting a few hours before Thursday night's game against the Oakland Raiders, quarterback Nick Mullens of the San Francisco 49ers was put together by one of the best statistics starts of his quarter by league history.
Mullens, who replaced the injured CJ Beathard in the starter squad, was not impressed by his early prime-time debut, calmly forcing the Niners to score points in the first two races of his young career and posting the best passerings ranking by a quarter in his first start since the merger in 1970.
With Mullens at the helm, the 49ers eliminated the Raiders 34-3 in the final "Battle of the Bay" before they moved to Las Vegas.
At the end of Mullens' first playing experience in the regular season, he had 16 points out of 22 for a total of 262 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions for a pass score of 151.9. And he let his emotions show up when he told Fox about his performance after the match.
"I am calm, calm and collected until I am able to express my emotions, and they will come out," he said. "I love football, I've grown since the second year and that's why you play for something like this."
Mullens seemed to reach another historical landmark with each completed pass.
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Mullens' 151.9 pass was the best of a quarter starting with at least 20 attempts since 1970.
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In the past 25 seasons, Mullens has joined Marc Bulger, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Marcus Mariota as the only players to have made three or more touchdowns in their first game, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
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Mullens is the first player since Carson Wentz to make a touchdown in his first career game in the team's first game and one of four to do so in the last 15 seasons, alongside Wentz, Mariota and Matt Ryan.
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Mullens is the first player in the history of the 49ers to have scored three touchdowns in his first game with the team, according to Elias Sport Bureau.
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The last time a quarterback of the 49ers threw two touchdown passes on the first two orders of a match, it was the 4th week of 2016 (Colin Kaepernick). The last time the Niners scored a touchdown on their first two home runs, it was the 14th week of 2016.
Thursday night, things went so well for Mullens that his Twitter account, unverified before, received a blue check mark – during the match.
All this has been added to the second win of the Niners of the season in one of the biggest kicks of a team with only one win at the end of the season at the Super Bowl. The 31-point margin of victory of the Niners is the second largest in this category.
"I have been in the organization for two years now, just trying to learn as much as I can every week and this week was my week," Mullens said. "So, you just have to take advantage of the opportunities when they come and they came."
The 49ers signed Mullens in 2017 as an unrestricted free agent of Southern Miss, where he was the most prolific quarterback in the history of the school, surpassing Brett Favre en route and ultimately destroying Titans quarterback records Austin Davis.
Before Thursday's match, Favre tweeted good luck to Mullens, which may have helped his case for verification on the social network.
Good luck to my colleague @USMGoldenEagles alum and QB @ NickMullens tonight for the @ 49ers! #SMTTT
– Brett Favre (@BrettFavre) November 1, 2018
In the days leading up to Thursday's game, Mullens prepared as if he was going to start but the Niners only had procedures to follow because of the short time since Sunday's loss to Arizona.
Beathard trying to recover from his injury, the Niners did not even know who would start Thursday night before a few hours before the game. Beathard, struggling with a straight wrist and thumb injury, was healthy enough to serve as a substitute, but coach Kyle Shanahan signaled to Mullens.
The 49ers no longer play before Monday, February 12 against the Giants. The question is whether Mullens will have a chance to play Nick at Night again.
"It's all I've dreamed of," he said, "but it's only a game, it's very important."
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