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Will the 49ers Draft Oregon Quarterback Dillon Gabriel?

The 49ers aren't in the market for a starting quarterback, but they definitely need a backup.
Grant Cohn|
Jan 1, 2025; Pasadena, CA, USA; Oregon Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel (8) throws a pass in the first half against the Ohio State Buckeyes in the 2025 Rose Bowl college football quarterfinal game at Rose Bowl Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
Jan 1, 2025; Pasadena, CA, USA; Oregon Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel (8) throws a pass in the first half against the Ohio State Buckeyes in the 2025 Rose Bowl college football quarterfinal game at Rose Bowl Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

INDIANAPOLIS -- The 49ers aren't in the market for a starting quarterback, but they definitely need a backup.

Both Brandon Allen and Joshua Dobbs will be free agents in a few weeks and the 49ers should re-sign neither of them. They're not good enough. Instead, the 49ers should draft a quarterback in the late rounds, preferably someone similar to their starter, Brock Purdy. And the quarterback in this year's draft who has the most in common with Purdy probably is Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel.

"All Gabriel has ever done between UCF, Oklahoma and Oregon in his six collegiate seasons is play darn good football," writes CBS Sports' Mike Renner. "He stepped on the field as a true freshman in 2019 and averaged 9.2 yards per attempt with 29 touchdowns compared to seven interceptions.

"As a sixth-year at Oregon, he led the No. 1 team in the nation, and I'd put his tape against Ohio State in the regular season up against any other quarterback's best game this last fall. He's short, yes (5-feet-10½), but the man has played more football entering the NFL (63 career starts) than anyone else in college football history.

"I'd bet good money he lands somewhere on the Russell Wilson to Brock Purdy spectrum of undersized quarterbacks in the NFL."

Gabriel will turn 25 in December, so he doesn't have a ton of potential. But he completed 72.9 percent of his passes, threw 30 touchdown passes and ran for 7 TDs in 2024. When he played at Oklahoma in 2023, he completed 69.3 percent of his passes, threw 30 touchdown passes ran for 12 touchdowns. So he's a bit of a dual threat. And he's a lefty, which is kind of cool.

Gabriel would be a terrific fit and a great value in the later rounds.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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