© Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports
We have finally reached that point. We’re at the nadir of the 49ers’ season, the emotional low which seemed to be upon us a half-dozen times prior to this week. But we can just about safely say it’s over now.
This team came to the desert, riding a high on the back of a season sweep over the Rams, visualizing a late-season charge towards the playoffs. Two losses later, it’s a sad state of affairs; players, coaches, staff, all stuck, isolated in the desert with nothing to do but bide time and wait for this wretched campaign to reach its overdue conclusion.
There are three games remaining, all of which represent potentially invaluable losses and shift the focus to the most crucial offseason of the John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan era.
So often, when we assess what a team needs, we look position by position, and attempt to plug holes. We did it last year, and the 49ers did as well as could conceivably be expected, netting Javon Kinlaw, Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams. You cannot do better than that at replacing DeForest Buckner, Emmanuel Sanders and Joe Staley while keeping the cap and future in mind.
You can run through that same exercise again if you want.
Get another edge rusher or two, add an interior offensive lineman, draft another tight end, bring in a safety, overhaul the cornerback position, etc. None of those are inaccurate assessments.
But this thing comes down to one position: quarterback. It is the way-too-obvious root of the tumult.
Richard Sherman said that from his perspective, the 49ers’ season has been disappointing, but not frustrating.
The reason so many fans feel that this season has been frustrating, and the reason you see Kyle Shanahan writhing on the sideline, is that for as sloppy as it has been, it’s been close.
It feels awfully like the 2017 and 2018 seasons. So many close games, nearly all lost because they did not have a capable quarterback.
Prior to this season, Jimmy Garoppolo has been a mostly capable quarterback. And an overwhelming amount of the time, that’s all that has been required for this team to win games at a elite clip.
But when Garoppolo’s out, which has been often due to an ACL tear and a nagging sprained ankle, it’s been disaster via a torturous path of near-success. The defense keeps the offense in the game, and the offense has moments of brilliance, but is outweighed time and time again by an all-encompassing pattern of disjointed play.
When they break that spasmodic pattern, or rekindle what makes the offense so dynamic, it feels like a waiting game. When will Nick Mullens turn the ball over? In San Francisco’s last 11 games, the winner has been the team who had the better turnover differential.
It’s drives sputtering out in so many familiar, aggravating patterns. Overthrown passes, underthrown passes… passes not thrown. Receivers not running patterns to or past the sticks, and dropping the ball when they’re thrown a decent pall.
Desperate, over-creative playcalling appears without imagination because of poor execution. Dropped passes, and so many times, quick pressure on Mullens; the later in the game it gets the more likely it is that it’s coming through McGlinchey avenue.
There are so many holes in this team, and yet, they’re always competitive.
That brings you back to that unifying factor: the quarterback.
Garoppolo is good, but not great. I do not believe he ever will be great, but I’m happy to be proven wrong.
If this team gets a quarterback who can run the offense without handicaps, who doesn’t leave Shanahan clenching his jaw every other play, it will win a Super Bowl and likely in the next three years. Book that.
The bar isn’t even set that high, but it’s higher than what’s currently available on San Francisco’s roster.
Can they get that guy? Yes, depending on who you think that guy is. Exactly four players seem meet the criteria in the upcoming draft, with elite arm talent and/or athleticism: Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, Trey Lance, Zach Wilson.
Right now, the 49ers, at 5-8, hold the 12th pick in the draft.
They are in position to draft one of those four players. Lawrence and Fields are almost certainly going 1-2, but one of Lance and Wilson should be in their range, at least close enough to trade up without selling the farm.
Last year, the lowest a 6-10 team drafted was 10th. In 2018 and 2017, it was 11th. In 2016, it was 8th. In 2015, 11th. In 2014, 10th. In 2013, 9th. In 2012, 10th. In 2011, 10th. In 2010, 13th (seven teams finished at 6-10).
That’s all to say in the last decade, no 6-10 team has drafted lower than 13th. If the 49ers finish 1-2, they’ll keep a fantastic draft position.
There has only been one case in NFL history of four quarterbacks being drafted in the top 10, and it happened in 2017. Outside of that occasion, four were drafted in the top 12 in 2011 and five went in the top 12 in 1999. Outside of that, consistently throughout NFL Draft history, it’s at most three quarterbacks in roughly the top-15.
What that means is that, if San Francisco stays below the 15th pick, they’ll have their shot to get a franchise quarterback. Again, it depends on how you see those four quarterbacks, and we’ll evaluate their merits in the offseason, but all four have unquestionably elite potential as far as arm talent and/or athleticism for the position.
This has been a hellish ride, but it may end with Shanahan getting a quarterback who’s more valuable than he is, which might just cement his and John Lynch’s legacies with this franchise.