Last week, reports started circulating that the San Francisco 49ers and Colin Kaepernick were going to restructure his contract to remove some of the injury guarantees. Nothing has yet to come of that, but there is still time with the team returning to practice on Tuesday.
A little bit earlier the day of that Kaepernick report, Matt Maiocco reported that some of the 49ers players actually thought Christian Ponder would be a better option at quarterback. The media brought that up with Chip Kelly during his Friday afternoon press conference following the team’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals. He said at that point a discussion had not been had yet regard the depth chart versus the Bills. Someone followed up asking if Ponder would be in the discussion when that discussion takes place. Kelly said, “We’ll see when we have the discussion.”
Kelly later said that Ponder has only been getting scout team reps, which usually means representing the quarterback of the opposing team each week. The team has a limited amount of reps for their own offense, and Kelly has split those up between Blaine Gabbert (3/4 of reps) and Colin Kaepernick (1/4 of reps). Ponder did some good things in the preseason, but if he were legitimately set to pass both Kaepernick and Gabbert on the depth chart, it would seem like the practice order would have to change (assuming Kelly is not BS’ing us).
Here are Kelly’s full comments regarding Ponder.
Has Christian Ponder received any reps outside of the scout team?
“No. So right now, you’re limited when you’re out there. So, right now it’s either Blaine gets the reps or then Kap gets the reps. So, to try to get a third quarterback involved when you’re working your first team offense is kind of difficult because who do you take those reps away from? He has not. He has done a really good job for getting in here late, acclimating himself to what we’re doing and then he’s done a really really good job at running our scout team. And, I think part of what people see in practice is that’s what he’s been doing. And he has done a really good job of that, but he hasn’t gotten reps with the first unit since we’ve started the season.”
These last couple weeks has it been the same rep distribution with Gabbert and Kaepernick?
“Yes.”
So, Gabbert is getting three quarters of the throws?
“Yes.”