Nick Mullens Might Need Tommy John Surgery

Nick Mullens' season is over, and he might miss next season, too.

Grant Cohn | Dec 22, 2020

Nick Mullens' season is over, and he might miss next season, too.

49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said Mullens could require Tommy John surgery on his right elbow, which he injured during the fourth quarter of the 49ers 41-33 loss to the Dallas Cowboys. Mullens attempted to throw a pass, but his arm hit another player's arm during the follow through, which caused the injury.

"Pretty serious injury," Shanahan said on Tuesday. "We'll let the swelling go down before we exactly decide what to do, but he'll be out."

To make matters more complicated for the 49ers, they placed practice squad quarterback Josh Johnson on the Reserve/COVID-19 List on Tuesday. And Jimmy Garopolo is still on Injured Reserve, even though he'll start practicing this week. So the 49ers currently have just one healthy quarterback -- C.J. Beathard.

Is Garoppolo able to back him up?

"No, he's not," Shanahan said. "That's only if the doctors tell me it's 100-percent safe and he feels good. I'd be very surprised if that happens. Right now, he's safe to go out to practice. We're only having a walkthrough today. But it will be fun for him to throw the ball around a little bit tomorrow. We're going to be very safe with him this week. We'll see next week, but I would be very surprised if that changes."

So the 49ers have Beathard left, and that's it. Recently, 49ers fans and media have been begging Shanahan to bench Mullens or Beathard, but Shanahan refused.

"Nick has outplayed him," Shanahan explained. "I think he did in the opportunities they've had to play, I think he did in training camp and I think he did in practice. It's not a huge difference, but we go with the guy who gives us the best chance, and we believed that was Nick."

And it was Nick. He did give the 49ers their best chance to win this season, the most ridiculous season of all time, and the 49ers fanbase didn't appreciate him. And he took he beating. And now he's broken. What a shame.

Published Dec 22, 2020

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.