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The San Francisco 49ers planned on heading down to San Diego to face the Chargers with four quarterbacks. Colin Kaepernick, Colt McCoy, B.J. Daniels and Seneca Wallace were going to go down, with Daniels and Wallace competing for the third quarterback spot. And then strange things began.
Prior to the game, word came out that Seneca Wallace was thinking of retiring, and then there were rumors he was simply going to be released. Eventually we learned he did not make the trip down to San Diego. After the game, Coach Harbaugh met with the media, and during the session he informed everybody that Thursday morning, Wallace had told him he was not going to make the trip, and he was not going to continue playing football.
Harbaugh admitted being thrown a bit in terms of getting that kind of comment on game day. However, Harbaugh also said he did not try and talk Wallace out of it.
The departure of Wallace made things a bit easier in terms of sorting out playing time Thursday night. Colin Kaepernick got the first series, Colt McCoy came in next and played through the first series of the third quarter, and B.J. Daniels wrapped things up.
Daniels continues to perform extraordinarily well. Considering the struggles of the 49ers reserve offensive line, that might add a little something to that performance. He showed off his legs and his touch, and has now put together three impressive preseason performances.
It's easy to think we're just getting overly excited about performances against bottom of the roster performers. And yet, th 49ers actions would dictate they think otherwise. Matt Barrows had this tweet:
McCoy's contract restructure suggests 49ers think that's possible ... @jaywaaa: do you see BJ overtaking mccoy during the season?"
— Matt Barrows (@mattbarrows) August 30, 2013
The 49ers re-negotiated Colt McCoy's contract to where he has a league minimum deal with sizable game-day roster bonuses. This would seem to infer that at some point the 49ers might be comfortable moving Daniels ahead of him.
There's a big step from coming into preseason games in the second half to knowing that you're the guy behind "the guy". Daniels seems to play with the kind of confidence that can allow him to fill that role. That's probably no more than an educated guess, but after what we've seen the last three weeks, would you say he's not playing with confidence?