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Do the 49ers Have a Good Backup Quarterback?

Remember when the 49ers used to talk about their quarterback room?

Grant Cohn

Sep 17, 2023; Glendale, AZ, USA; Arizona Cardinals quarterback Joshua Dobbs (9) prepares to return to the field against the New York Giants in the first half at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Rob Schumacher-Arizona Republic
Sep 17, 2023; Glendale, AZ, USA; Arizona Cardinals quarterback Joshua Dobbs (9) prepares to return to the field against the New York Giants in the first half at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Rob Schumacher-Arizona Republic / Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY
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Remember when the 49ers used to talk about their quarterback room?

Having a good starting quarterback wasn't enough for them. They had to have a good quarterback room, and that meant multiple quality backups. The 49ers even had a backup quarterback competition last year -- that's how important the position supposedly was to them. And that's because they didn't have a franchise quarterback or a starter they could merely keep healthy for an entire season.

Now the 49ers are coming off just one season in which their starting quarterback stayed healthy and played well, and you never hear about the quarterback room anymore. The backup quarterbacks no longer matter.

Or do they?

The 49ers don't invest in pass protection outside of the left tackle position, which is a big reason they've suffered so many quarterback injuries since Kyle Shanahan has been the head coach. They've never had two seasons in a row under Shanahan in which the starting quarterback stayed healthy.

Which brings us to Joshua Dobbs and Brandon Allen. The odds suggest that one of them will start at least one game for the 49ers this season. And neither one is particularly good. There's no guarantee the 49ers could win a game with either of them.

It's too bad the 49ers don't have Trey Lance anymore. They traded him last year, not because he lost the backup quarterback competition -- he clearly was better than Sam Darnold and Brandon Allen. The 49ers simply thought Lance would be a distraction because people constantly would talk about him. So they traded him to Dallas for a pick.

Now they probably wish they had him back.

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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.

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