Kyle Shanahan sticking with Brian Hoyer despite struggles, 0-4 record

San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan does not plan on making a quarterback change any time soon. Brian Hoyer has struggled this season, but the 49ers have also lost three of their four games by a combined eight points. Hoyer hasn’t wont them any games, but he hasn’t lost them, either.

“He needs to play better,” Shanahan said, “and we need to play better around him.”

The 49ers are winless, and Hoyer is sitting with a completion percentage of 58.1 percent. His passer rating is 67.9, which is near the bottom of the heap as far as starting quarterbacks are concerned.

Hoyer has had to play through poor interior offensive line play, an inconsistent running game (from a coaching standpoint — Carlos Hyde isn’t getting enough touches, in my opinion) and iffy play from his receivers. Marquise Goodwin has dropped his share of passes, and Hoyer completed a laughable three of 12 passes thrown at Aldrick Robinson in Week 4 alone.

"You don't want to lose perspective," Shanahan said. "You look at each game as it is. I know we're 0-4 right now, but when you lose three games by a total of eight points, I know we very easily could be 3-1. You don't want to make drastic changes for one reason."

Shanahan said that he wouldn’t hesitate to bench Hoyer if he felt it was the best thing to do for the team, but at the moment doesn’t feel like it’s the best thing to do. As far as rookie C.J. Beathard is concerned, I don’t see him playing until the final couple games of the season at best.

Right now, Beathard doesn’t do anything specific better than Hoyer. Everybody loves the backup quarterback, but I think Shanahan is making the right call here.