While the rest of the football world speculates, San Francisco 49ers’ head coach Kyle Shanahan has “a pretty good idea” who will start at quarterback on Sept. 12 against the Detroit Lions.
“I’ve always had a pretty good idea,” Shanahan said and then went on later to say, “…I think you guys all got a pretty good idea and I think our team does also.”
The incumbent QB1, Jimmy Garoppolo, also seems to have a good grasp on who it might be.
“Yeah, I have a pretty good idea,” Garoppolo said with an obvious smile. “It’s whatever [Shanahan] decides, yeah. I have a pretty good idea. I’m pretty happy with where I’m at right now and everything and just the offense as a whole. Yeah, Kyle’s the head man. He’ll make the call.”
Jimmy Garoppolo also has a pretty good idea of who Week 1’s QB1 is going to be #49ers pic.twitter.com/gxV1DTZooV
— Tracy Sandler (@49ersfangirl) August 25, 2021
Both Garoppolo and rookie quarterback Trey Lance went on to have a strong Wednesday practice, and it was a day that saw some quarterback rotation. During a move-the-ball period, Lance took five reps with the first-team unit, while Garoppolo took some snaps with the second-team. In other words, we may be looking at rotating quarterbacks in a few weeks.
“I think I’m doing a little bit of more of it here these next two weeks, just for me to get used to it and stuff, so the guys get used to it,” Shanahan said. “Watching New Orleans doing it with Drew Brees and Taysom [Hill] has been pretty cool over the last three years. I’m sure that took them some time to kind of get the flow of that. But it’s nothing that you can say, ‘Hey we did this in practice so this is how it’s going to be.’ You adjust to that in games and you prepare for everything, but you don’t know until you go through it. So that’s why I don’t sit here and pretend like I have all the answers because I don’t. You prepare for every situation, you work the guys to the best of their ability, and then you see what your game plan is and you figure out what gives you the best chance to win that game. And you try to keep your thoughts just to that.”
Nick Bosa
Nick Bosa was back in team drills for the first time since tearing his ACL in Week Two of the 2020 season. He played about nine snaps and recorded a would-be sack of Garoppolo.
“He looks great on the side,” Shanahan said. “He looks good doing all the football movements, in individual and stuff. And to me it’s more of his mind, which all guys need coming off a serious injury like that. Nick’s ready for football. He just needs to go through some reps and he’s back in there and I hope he feels good about it at the end of the day.”
Notes
- Jaquiski Tartt was activated from the Active/Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list today. “I know he feels good right now, which is very encouraging,” Shanahan said. “I think he started feeling a lot better while we were down in L.A. So, I’m just pumped he wants to practice today, feels healthy enough to practice today and we’ll evaluate these three practices and decide for Sunday and then decide on our 53.”
- Also returning to practice today were DL Javon Kinlaw, LT Trent Williams, CB Emmanuel Moseley, WR Jalen Hurd, RB Trey Sermon, RB Elijah Mitchell, OL Shon Coleman and LB Azeez Al-Shaair.
