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Will the 49ers Trade for Mac Jones?

Remember, the 49ers almost drafted Mac Jones with the third pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.

Grant Cohn

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The 49ers need a backup quarterback and Mac Jones seems available. Will the 49ers trade for him?

The 49ers' current backup quarterback is Sam Darnold, who will be a free agent next month and most likely will sign somewhere else. And when he does, the 49ers will need to replace him.

Sure, they could sign an aging veteran such as Joe Flacco, who was excellent for the Browns last season after Deshaun Watson went down. Or the 49ers could draft another quarterback and attempt to find the next Brock Purdy. 

Either approach would be fine. But there's a third option the 49ers might like: Trade for Mac Jones.

Remember, the 49ers almost drafted Mac Jones with the third pick in the 2021 NFL Draft but seemed to change their mind at the last minute and draft Trey Lance, who now is on the Cowboys. At the time, Kyle Shanahan said he thought both Jones and Lance were future starting quarterbacks in the NFL.

Now Jones most likely is available, because the Patriots fired Bill Belichick and their new head coach isn't tied to Jones. In fact, the Patriots don't seem to like him much. They benched him last season, and there were reports that he's not coachable.

Still, I could see the 49ers trading for him.

If they gave him a first-round grade -- they almost certainly did -- and they can get him for a third- or a fourth-round pick now, I'm guessing they'll do it.

Stay tuned. Trade talks could heat up soon.

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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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