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Why the 49ers Don't Need a Veteran Quarterback in 2021

The 49ers play in the most difficult division in the NFC. The Rams just got better, the Cardinals improve as Kyler Murray improves and the Seahawks are the Seahawks -- they're good for at least 10 wins every season.
Grant Cohn|
Why the 49ers Don't Need a Veteran Quarterback in 2021
Why the 49ers Don't Need a Veteran Quarterback in 2021

Let's be real clear about this.

The 49ers don't need a veteran quarterback, because they're not going anywhere next season. They missed their Super Bowl window. They need to reload.

Start a rookie quarterback or Josh Rosen. Whoever wins a quarterback competition.

The 49ers aren't bad, but they play in the most difficult division in their conference. The NFC West is stacked. The Rams just got better, the Cardinals improve as Kyler Murray improves and the Seahawks are the Seahawks -- they're good for at least 10 wins every season.

Jimmy Garoppolo is the worst starting quarterback in the division. Even if the 49ers were to keep him, they probably would finish fourth in the NFC West next season. Even if the 49ers somehow were to trade for Matt Ryan or Kirk Cousins or Derek Carr, what would their upside be? They still would have the worst quarterback in the division and probably would finish last in it next season.

The 49ers are a year behind the Rams, who were 9-7 the past two seasons. That's about how good the 49ers are right now. At best, they'd squeak into the playoffs as a Wild Card team and lose.

Which means the 49ers should build for 2022. Get a boat load of young, healthy talent. Trade Garoppolo now. Get whatever you can for him. Or cut him and save $25 million in cap space. That's a nice trade off, too. Let him go back to the Patriots and throw to their awful receivers.

The 49ers can afford to start an inexperienced quarterback next season, and they should start an inexperienced quarterback so they can accelerate his growth and have him ready to compete for a Super Bowl in 2022, whether that's Rosen or a rookie.

Develop the future. The Revenge Tour flopped. Move on.

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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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