Is Kyle Shanahan making a mistake by keeping three quarterbacks on the roster?
There are no better words to hear right now as a football fan than "The NFL preseason is over.". Finally the tease and warmup to the regular season has ended. Now all eyes will be towards the next step this Saturday afternoon at 1pst/4est for the final roster trim down to 53 players. For the San Francisco 49ers, they have plenty of tough decisions to make. One of those decisions has already been made at the quarterback position.
Following the preseason finale loss to the Los Angeles Chargers head coach Kyle Shanahan maintained his position that he is going to keep three players at quarterback. Both Nick Mullens and CJ Beathard are expected to make the cut this Saturday. Of course anything can change from now until Saturday, but as it stands the 49ers will carry three quarterbacks. It begs the question to ask... is Kyle Shanahan making a mistake by keeping three quarterbacks on the roster?
The answer is most certainly yes. Shanahan is wasting a roster spot to carry an extra quarterback as opposed to using that spot towards another pressing position. A third string quarterback that won't even be a contributor to the 49ers. Wide receiver could use that spot or even defensive line since the health of Nick Bosa and Dee Ford is shaky to say the least. Nowadays teams don't even carry three quarterbacks on their active roster because it benefits them to allocate that spot elsewhere.
By using that spot to keep three quarterbacks, Kyle Shanahan is weakening another position. It's also pointless to keep three because the moment you lose your starting quarterback your season is practically over. The backup quarterback is just there in case the starter goes down in a game. At that point, the 49ers would be better off signing a free agent quarterback just to fill the roster. There could be a chance that Shanahan is saying he will keep both Mullens and Beathard for trade purposes.
However, Mullens is the only real trade bait player of the two. If Mullens gets put on the practice squard he would likely be poached away. When it comes to Beathard, no one would actually trade for him unless they want him on special teams after watching his key block last night. So why does Kyle Shanahan want to keep both of these quarterbacks? Perhaps it could be he believes that if Jimmy Garopplo goes down again that they can still win games with either Mullens or Beathard.
These two players do have a string of games on their belt, so they're experience enough to rule the pressure factor out. They also are more embedded into the offense, which makes everything in the game slow down for them. Not to mention the offensive line is expected to be improved, which will help since they both of them were getting battered last season. If this is the case, then it wouldn't be as shocking as to why he is keeping them.
Shanahan believes strongly in his system and in himself as a play caller. He knows this season there cannot be any excuses even if injuries become a hindrance. By keeping two backup quarterbacks that he has oversaw he maintains the familiarity as opposed to signing someone off the street. Even so, this is still a mistake being made by Kyle Shanahan. He could easily make a tough decision at another position group easier if he lets one of the backup quarterbacks go.
Saturday afternoon is going to be very revealing about the personnel decisions made by Shanahan and John Lynch. There is most likely going to be a surprise cut somewhere and it'll be because they wanted to keep three quarterbacks. For the 49ers sake, they cannot error in this decision. Once again, the 2019 season will not tolerate any excuses, but things are already starting off on the wrong foot if Shanahan does end up keeping three quarterbacks.
