Kyle Shanahan Says He would be "Suprised" if the 49ers Add Baker Mayfield

Here's what Shanahan said, courtesy of the 49ers P.R. department.
In this story:

Doesn't sound like the 49ers plan to add any more quarterbacks to their roster.

After Jimmy Garoppolo suffered a season-ending broken foot, the 49ers signed veteran Josh Johnson. Then today, the Carolina Panthers waived Baker Mayfield, who has much more starting experience than Johnson. So a reporter asked Kyle Shanahan on a conference call if the 49ers would considering claiming Mayfield if he's available -- the 49ers are 24th in the waiver order.

Here's what Shanahan said, courtesy of the 49ers P.R. department.

Q: Do you guys have any interest in pursuing former Carolina Panthers QB Baker Mayfield on the waiver wire?

SHANAHAN: “We look into everything, but that’d surprise me right now. We have to discuss more this afternoon, but I've always been a fan of his, but I feel real good about our players and we'll look into everything, but I feel pretty good with where we're at right now.

Q: You mentioned that Josh Johnson has spent at least a month with you before, I know all cases are different, but would it be tough to consider bringing in a quarterback who had not ever really spent time under you and with this team?

SHANAHAN: “Yeah, it makes a lot harder, but sometimes you don't have that luxury. We would definitely do that if we felt there was a viable guy out there, but that's really tough in this situation, so you always want to go for the guy who gives you the best chance to win and you take in a lot of factors into the deciding that, but having familiarity with what we do allows the guy to pick up on it pretty fast because it's not like whoever you bring in you’re going to give a ton of reps to. [QB] Trey [Lance] got all of our reps when he was up and then when he went down Jimmy got them all and Brock hasn't got any first team reps here. I don’t know if he has this year yet or at least since training camp, so it'll be the same for Josh when he comes in. He'll run the scout team and do all that, but he has to sit there and prepare the same way that Brock has been doing it. I know that we got a guy who is familiar with it and capable of doing that.”

Q: Because your team is built that way, a lot of people are wondering whether it might entice a retired quarterback to unretire and join you guys. Has any veteran, retired quarterback reached out to you or have you looked into that?

SHANAHAN: “No, we haven't. Still waiting on [HOF QB] Joe [Montana] to call.”

Q: HOF QB Steve Young is going to be offended.

SHANAHAN: “Steve, I'm definitely ready for Steve. I think he could still run it, so let's do it.”


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.