Given how the 2023 season ended for the 49ers it would be hard to fault them for keeping any abnormally large number of quarterbacks on their 53-man roster. However, general manager John Lynch doesn’t anticipate the team keeping as many as four.
San Francisco has four QBs in training camp with the entire quartet getting reps. Veteran Brandon Allen was added during OTAs to give the 49ers a third signal caller for whatever amount of time Brock Purdy missed during camp.
Allen did well enough during OTAs to draw praise from head coach Kyle Shanahan and to stay on the roster even with Purdy returning for the start of training camp. While there are some rumblings that San Francisco could keep all four QBs on the 53-man roster, Lynch on Monday threw some cold water on that notion in his press conference.
“I think four on a 53 would be very challenging,” Lynch said. “Four in the building is certainly possible. And it’s one of those things, I think we just want to throw it all out there, let things unfold, and then we’ll figure out the details as we go. We’re all product of our experiences and that experience wasn’t real cool last year. Seeing when you run out at that position, that’s not a good feeling. And so, I think we’ll be forever impacted with that going forward. And it will probably affect the way we, and we’ll be mindful. I can’t promise that because there’s other things that arise on the roster. You can try to project it as much as possible, but things always happen. Injuries happen. It’s a dynamic situation, but that’s an area where it’s important to us to be deep.”
The 49ers of course saw their Super Bowl hopes fall apart in the NFC championship game when QB3 Brock Purdy and QB4 Josh Johnson were both hurt.
It would appear the adjustment for them would be keeping three QBs on the roster, with a fourth on the practice squad who can be elevated if necessary.
While our last 53-man roster projection is for sure not correct, we went through it to see where the team could comfortably trim a player to keep a fourth QB. It’s not easy and the risk of lacking depth at other key areas may not outweigh the reward of keeping a fourth QB.
Ideally the 49ers would finally have some health under center this year and only need one QB. That’s not been the reality for them though in five out of Shanahan’s six seasons as head coach, so being prepared for anything is the right move. Four QBs though is probably excessive.
