The 49ers should not bench Brian Hoyer yet

The San Francisco 49ers dropped another tough one in Week 4, losing 18-15 in overtime to the Arizona Cardinals. The defense put up a valiant effort through four quarters before losing it late, but the blame falls on the offense in this one. The 49ers offense had numerous opportunities through all five periods to win this game, and came up short.

Quarterback Brian Hoyer finished the game 24 of 49 for 234 yards and one interception. It was a performance that was similar to a lot of what we have seen thus far. He was woefully inaccurate at times, but he also saw his receivers dropping some must-catch passes that might have swung the game. And of course, he made a bad decision that resulted in an interception.

Hoyer has shown some signs of progress at times, but there has been no consistency series to series. We see the same thing every week, and naturally this has some fans screaming for C.J. Beathard to get a shot.

In spite of the struggles, I don’t think it makes sense yet to make a switch at quarterback. This is not a vote of confidence in Hoyer so much as a vote of confidence in staying the course in a rebuilding season. If Brian Hoyer does not show some more consistency over the coming weeks, maybe then i might make some sense, but for now, I don’t see that situation existing yet.

The 49ers will have some decisions to make next spring, between potential free agent Kirk Cousins and the 2018 NFL Draft class. The team moved up this year to draft Beathard in the third round. That suggests plenty of interest, but anything after the first round offers up a lot of room for flexibility in what it might mean. I do think it makes sense if the 49ers are struggling to at least see what Beathard can do, but I don’t see it being reasonable until after the bye at the earliest. If the 49ers come out of their bye with only one or two wins, maybe then you start considering a change.

If George Kittle catches that potential first down conversion, or Aldrick Robinson hauls in that deep ball over his head, maybe we’re looking at this game a little differently. You do have to factor in everything to the analysis, so there are still plenty of Hoyer mistakes to offset those plays. But we are looking at a year in whicht the offensive line is a problem and the rebuilding is more clear on that side of the ball. Maybe at some point the arithmetic changes, but for the time being, there is no reason to rush Beathard out there.