San Francisco 49ers quarterback room is getting crowded

The San Francisco 49ers moved up in the draft presumably to draft a quarterback, but their quarterback room is already quite crowded. 

After a season where they were an overthrown ball away from winning Super Bowl LIV, the San Francisco 49ers underwhelmed in 2020. A big reason as to why is that Jimmy Garoppolo and a lot of the key players missed a large portion of the season due to injury.

With Garoppolo not wowing as the 49ers front office had hoped, they’re clearly looking to move on from him and traded up to the No. 3 pick in the draft to likely draft his successor. It’d be tough to tell that the 49ers want a quarterback by looking at their roster, however, as they currently have four signal callers on the team.

Obviously, there’s Garoppolo, but the Niners also have former No. 10 overall pick Josh Rosen, journeyman Josh Johnson, and former Eagles third-stringer Nate Sudfeld. This is even crazier when considering the 49ers are going to add yet another quarterback in three weeks when the draft begins.

The San Francisco 49ers have a crowded quarterback room and another is about to join the party.

It’s not uncommon to have four quarterbacks this time of year but to have that many and also plan on taking one in a few weeks seems a bit odd. They did have a lot of injuries at the position last year so maybe this is their way of covering their tracks and preventing a situation like last year from arising again.

Garoppolo is still with the team as of now and very well could be the team’s starter in 2021 even if the team does draft a signal-caller. He could be used in more of a mentor role or maybe this would be a good way to motivate him and help him play better. Everyone wins in that scenario.

The other three names are backups at the most. Rosen has now been on four teams since being the No. 10 overall pick just three years ago and this is a good landing spot for him. Kyle Shanahan is the right coach for Rosen and trying to get something out of him.

Johnson hasn’t been anything more than a backup or even third-string option during his career so he probably won’t last on the roster past the next round of cuts. Sudfeld was a nice depth piece in Philadelphia but like Johnson, he’s not going to be anything more than a QB2/3.

The 49ers have some questions to answer at the quarterback spot and they’re doing everything they can to address it. Once they find their guy, whoever it ends up being, the real fun will begin for the San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback carousel.