How starters do with highly drafted QBs in waiting
No. 3 overall pick Trey Lance has justifiably created a lot of buzz speculating about when the rookie will take over the starting quarterback spot for the 49ers.
Incumbent Jimmy Garoppolo will have plenty to say about the timeline, too, and recent history might inform what to expect.
Before each of the first three picks were used on quarterbacks this year (Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence, the Jets’ Zach Wilson, and Lance), seven had been taken among the top three picks between 2016 and ’20.
Four of those seven started from Week 1: Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow, Arizona’s Kyler Murray, the Jets’ Sam Darnold, and Philadelphia’s Carson Wentz. The scenarios more similar to the 49ers’ situation happened in Cleveland, Chicago and Los Angeles.
Despite having the No. 1 overall pick in 2018 and knowing they would use it on Baker Mayfield, the Browns traded for Tyrod Taylor a month before the draft. Taylor started Week 1 against Pittsburgh and helped Cleveland snap a 17game losing skid with a 2121 tie.
Two games later, Taylor was injured. Mayfield came on in relief to lead a Thursday night victory over the Jets and started the season’s final 13 games.
Garoppolo has struggled with injuries since being acquired from New England for a secondround pick in 2017. He was limited to three starts in 2018 because of a torn ACL, and he started only six games last year as he hobbled in and out of the lineup on a high ankle sprain.
In 2017, Chicago made the questionable decision to ink a threeyear, $45 million deal with Mike Glennon, who hadn’t started an NFL game since 2014. The franchise followed that up an even more questionable decision, moving up to the second overall pick to snag Mitchell Trubisky.
Neither move worked. Trubisky took over as the starter in Week 5 after the Bears’ 13 start, and they finished the season 511.
Both Taylor and Glennon were brought in specifically as placeholders for top picks to develop, but closer to the Garoppolo situation, Case Keenum had more than a year in the Rams’ system before they used the No. 1 overall pick on Cal’s Jared Goff in 2016.
Keenum started the first nine games as Goff learned from the sideline in his rookie season and put up stats remarkably parallel to those of Garoppolo. Keenum completed 61% of his passes for 241 yards per game.
In 30 starts for the 49ers, Garoppolo has completed 67.5% of his passes for 237.2 yards per game. The big differences are ball security and winning.
Keenum threw nine touchdown passes and 11 interceptions, while Garoppolo has 46 TD passes and 26 interceptions. Keenum went 45, while Garoppolo is 228 for the 49ers as a regularseason starter.
The 49ers’ incumbent might not give up the job so easily.
“I thought Jimmy came in in great shape, really locked in, a good place physically and mentally,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said after offseason team activities concluded earlier this month. “And, I thought he had as good of OTAs as he’s had.”