Can the 49ers Win with Sam Darnold?

Why are the oddsmakers so confident in Darnold?
In this story:

Either the oddsmakers think Brock Purdy will play this weekend, or they think the 49ers can win with Sam Darnold.

Currently, the 49ers are 3 1/2 point favorites to beat the Bengals on Sunday despite the fact that Purdy is in the concussion protocol after taking a blow to the head on Monday Night Football. Which means he'll have just six days to clear the concussion protocol. Which means there's a very large likelihood that Purdy won't play and that Darnold will start.

So why are the oddsmakers so confident in Darnold?

Is it because Kyle Shanahan said he could be the next Steve Young? Probably not. It most likely has to do with their confidence in the rest of the team. The quarterback is a passenger on the 49ers -- not the driver of the bus. His job isn't to win the game, it's not to lose it. And for a while, Purdy was doing a great job of not losing games. He was protecting the football, taking what the defense gave him and making the occasional play with his legs. He didn't do too much. He let his supporting cast do most of the work.

But the past two weeks, the 49ers needed more from Purdy because they were missing some key players. And he didn't step up. Instead, he shrunk. Threw three picks in two games and a few other passes that should have been intercepted. Suddenly, he became a main reason the 49ers were losing.

Enter Darnold. Can he get the 49ers back on track? He certainly has the ability to protect the football, take what the defense gives him and make the occasional play with his legs. He can be the game manager the 49ers want, for a game or two. Eventually, he'll start turning the ball over just like Purdy has. That's Darnold's history.

Eventually, the 49ers will need a quarterback who can put the team on his back. Not a quarterback the rest of the team has to carry. They're learning that right now with Purdy. The past two games, he couldn't carry them.

This weekend, the 49ers will need Darnold to lead the 49ers to a victory over Joe Burrow and the Bengals. I'm not so confident Darnold can pull that off.

Stay tuned.


Published
Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.