⏩ Pass or fail?
QB Nick Mullens, playing in place of Jimmy Garoppolo, struggles against Packers.
Just 21⁄ minutes into the
2 third quarter of Thursday night’s game, Fox analyst Troy Aikman suggested that the 49ers should consider benching quarterback Nick Mullens in favor of C. J. Beathard.
San Francisco’s 3417 loss to Green Bay was that ugly, and Mullens was at the helm of much of it.
On a night when injuries and the coronavirus pandemic left the 49ers without five of their six most productive receivers, and Mullens was starting in place of anklesprained Jimmy Garoppolo, the backup quarterback might have lost his title as a fan favorite.
Mullens went 22for35 for 291 yards, a touchdown, an interception and a lost fumble. It could have been even worse as many of the undrafted 25yearold’s throws wobbled out of his hand, and Green Bay players seemed to be his intended targets almost as often as were his teammates.
Mullens didn’t make excuses for his poor play. “You only say it’s tough, because we didn’t execute. I felt like we could have played a lot better than we did. I felt like we had a lot of really good plays called that gave us a lot of opportunities, and for whatever reason, we didn’t connect.
“I feel like we could have gotten after those guys and done some good things, but that’s on the players. You just hope to go out there and do you best, and we didn’t do that tonight.”
Former 49ers Jeff Garcia and Donte Whitner saw the same things.
“At this point of the season, I’m going with C. J. Beathard. We’ve seen enough of Nick Mullens,” Whitner said on NBC Sports Bay Area’s “49ers Postgame” show. “Too many bad balls. Too many late balls. Too many forced balls.”
Garcia added: “It’s tough. Nick Mullens, I believe is an adequate backup. That’s where he should stay.”
Just four days after Mullens replaced a limping Garoppolo and reignited every fan base’s favorite debate about who should be the starting quarterback by racking up 238 passing yards and two scores at Seattle, the backup couldn’t come close to repeating the performance.
Coming into Thursday’s game, Mullens had completed 70.4% of his passes for 852 yards and had a 97.8 quarterback rating, but he didn’t have much of a chance against Green Bay and didn’t help himself with poor and late throws to a makeshift receiving corps.
With a supporting cast that made the game appear more like the second half of a preseason game than a rematch of last season’s NFC Championship Game, Mullens consistently threw nonspirals behind receivers.
As Preston Smith pressured him in the second quarter, Mullens lobbed a pass that was nearly turning end over end as it settled into the grasp of Green Bay defensive back Raven Greene.
If it wasn’t for a widereceiver screen that Richie James turned into a 47yard play, Mullens would have averaged just 7.18 yards per attempt.
“I’ve spent some time with Nick, so I think our chemistry is pretty good,” said James, who had nine catches for 184 yards. “I don’t think we need time to get that chemistry back, but we all need to click together.”
Even Mullens’ 41yard touchdown pass to James was terribly underthrown and almost failed to take advantage of a blown coverage that left the receiver wide open in the Green Bay secondary.
It didn’t help Mullens that Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was surgical opposite him, completing 25 of 31 passes for 305 yards, four touchdowns and zero interceptions in a reminder of what a franchise quarterback looks like.