The Shanaplan: Nick Mullens isn’t getting enough credit

No position in all of sports is more closely scrutinized than the starting quarterback of an NFL team. And among those 32 starting quarterback spots, no team’s signal-caller is more closely scrutinized than the man under center for the San Francisco 49ers. That’s what comes with a football lineage of Joe Montana and Steve Young. This year, Jimmy Garoppolo has been a particular favorite target of derision from 49ers fans, as have backups Nick Mullens and CJ Beathard. For at least one week, however, Kyle Posey and Akash Anavarathan think Mullens deserves more love than he’s getting.

“Everyone is like, ‘Nick Mullens sucks blah blah blah,” Akash said, “But in the fourth quarter when it was nut-cutting time and the Niners needed plays to be made, Nick Mullens was 11 of 14 for 117 yards. He had 102.0 passer rating, they had three 20-yard plays, Aaron Donald was in the backfield every other play and Nick Mullens just hit plays. Plays needed to be made and he made them.”

Kyle also pointed out how the narrative of this game would be different had number 10 been under center instead of number 4.

“If Jimmy Garoppolo had done what Nick Mullens did we are not seeing headlines that the 49ers defense beat the Rams. Can we acknowledge what he did? Props to Mullens for overcoming the early mistakes. Yes, he made mistakes, but Jimmy has done that plenty of times and bounced back. It was good to see that Nick did the same.”

What do you think, is Mullens not getting enough love for what we saw on Sunday?

For more analysis of Sunday’s win, check out today’s Shanaplan podcast. Kyle and Akash give you their observations after a deep dive into the film, play Stock Up/Stock Down, and explore one area where the 49ers’ offense should really be able to hurt Buffalo on Monday Night. You can find the episode here on this page and wherever you get your podcasts.