Now that the 49ers are down to Brock Purdy as their starting quarterback, we’ve all begun to wonder how many rocks they’ll turn over looking for a better backup than Josh Johnson 4.0. One of those options is Baker Mayfield, who asked for and was granted his release from Carolina.
“We look into everything,” Kyle Shanahan said when asked about the team’s interest in Mayfield yesterday, “But that’d surprise me right now. We have to discuss more this afternoon. I’ve always been a fan of his, but I feel real good about our players and we’ll look into everything, but I feel pretty good with where we’re at right now.”
Mayfield started his career quickly in Cleveland, breaking the NFL record for touchdown passes by a rookie quarterback without even starting all 16 games. We all know that success was short-lived, however, and he has scuffled since his trade to Carolina.
For what it’s worth, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mike Silver tweeted this on Monday evening.
I'm told the 49ers have done their due diligence on Baker Mayfield, who asked the Panthers for his release this morning. We'll see if a) they claim him b) a team with a higher waiver priority claims him c) they sign him if he goes unclaimed...
— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) December 6, 2022
Right now the 49ers are 24th in the waiver claim order, so almost the entire league would have to pass on the former Heisman Trophy winner for him to end up in scarlet and gold.
Even if Mayfield did join the team, he’d still have to learn a very complicated offense, very quickly. Shanahan was also asked whether it would be tough to bring in a QB that didn’t know the system.
“Yeah, it makes a lot harder, but sometimes you don’t have that luxury. We would definitely do that if we felt there was a viable guy out there, but that’s really tough in this situation, so you always want to go for the guy who gives you the best chance to win and you take in a lot of factors into the deciding that, but having familiarity with what we do allows the guy to pick up on it pretty fast because it’s not like whoever you bring in you’re going to give a ton of reps to.”
What about some of the retired guys that are out there, Kyle? Has there been any communication between the team and any retired players?
“No, we haven’t. Still waiting on Joe [Montana] to call. We keep checking.”
When reminded that Steve Young might be offended if he didn’t get a call, Kyle quipped, “Steve, I’m definitely ready for Steve. I think he could still run it, so let’s do it.”
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