All 49ers

Will the 49ers Sign Marcus Mariota?

Mariota would make a ton of sense for the 49ers. First, he's mobile, which means he would be a good fit backing up Trey Lance.

Grant Cohn

In this story:

While the national pundits argue about which all-time great quarterback the 49ers should acquire -- Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady -- the 49ers reportedly are searching for a backup quarterback.

And the No. 1 backup quarterback on their list appears to be Marcus Mariota.

Mariota would make a ton of sense for the 49ers. First, he's mobile, which means he would be a good fit backing up Trey Lance. Mariota theoretically could run the same offense Lance runs if Lance were to get injured and miss games. Mariota is averaging 6 yards per carry for his career.

Mariota was the second pick in the 2016 draft, so he can relate to the pressure Lance feels. And Mariota has started 61 games and won 29 of them. So the 49ers probably could win a few games with him if Lance were to miss a month or so.

But there's a reason Mariota is seen as a backup at this point in his career and not a starting quarterback.

He's brittle. He gets injured too much. And the injuries have taken a toll on his athletic ability and confidence.

In that sense, he's a good option for the 49ers, because he's a high-level backup with starting experience who fits the new direction their offense is going. But Mariota is injury prone, and the 49ers have had awful luck signing injury-prone veterans to significant contracts with guaranteed money. I don't know if it's the water in Santa Clara, the training staff or bad luck, but the 49ers have an abysmal track record trying to rehabilitate broken down veterans from other teams.

The 49ers should stay away from Mariota and find someone durable.

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.

Home/News