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San Francisco 49ers: Which Quarterback Should Start for Chip Kelly in 2016?

By Bryan Knowles

Nov 8, 2015; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Blaine Gabbert (2) and quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) warm up before the game against the Atlanta Falcons at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 8, 2015; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Blaine Gabbert (2) and quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) warm up before the game against the Atlanta Falcons at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports /
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Dec 26, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Sam Bradford (7) passes against the Washington Redskins during the first quarter at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 26, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Sam Bradford (7) passes against the Washington Redskins during the first quarter at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports /

3. A Young Free Agent

Blaine Gabbert is not the sort of quarterback you build a team around long-term; he’s never shown the ability to be The Guy in an offense. If Colin Kaepernick wants out of town, the draft board looks bare and Chip Kelly wants to build around a player for more than a season, his best option will be to bring in someone from outside the organization.

Sam Bradford has a year of experience in Chip Kelly’s system, and it actually went quite well. He may not be the prototypical Kelly quarterback and he may have an extensive injury history, but he was a perfectly adequate quarterback last season. He improved as the year went on, as well—his quarterback rating jumped from 76.4 to 97.0 in the second half of the season, as he got more comfortable with Kelly’s offense. In his last seven games as a starter, he threw ten touchdown passes and only four interceptions while averaging 280 yards passing per game. Those aren’t numbers that are going to send Pro Bowl voters rushing to their ballot boxes, but that’s very solid production.

It isn’t a one-year aberration, either; Bradford’s always looked above average when healthy. He’s missed so many games that that “when healthy” caveat is carrying a lot of weight, but he’s not a bad player by any stretch of the imagination.

The problem with bringing in Bradford—or a Kirk Cousins or a Brock Osweiler—is that the team would be paying big-time starter money for someone with something of a checkered past. Top quarterbacks don’t generally hit free agency while they’re still a top quarterback; needy teams will have to pay top dollar for a quarterback with either injury concerns in case of Bradford or a limited track record in the case of Cousins or Osweiler.  Yes, the 49ers can afford to make that decision with their cap space, but one of the reasons they have so much cap space is because they do not have a habit of making those decisions.

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