Nick Mullens needs to be 49ers’ backup to Jimmy Garoppolo

There’s going to be a budding position battle during San Francisco 49ers training camp between Nick Mullens and C.J. Beathard, and the former needs to win this bout to back up quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.

While the San Francisco 49ers already have quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo poised to start under center in 2019, there’s going to be an important position battle taking place behind him.

Backup signal-callers C.J. Beathard and Nick Mullens will battle it out this training camp and preseason to determine who winds up being the No. 2 quarterback on the depth chart. Head coach Kyle Shanahan has reiterated both will have an equal shot claiming the job.

Yet it’s Mullens who needs to secure it.

Simply put, there’s already a stark contrast between the two players’ efforts, notably from last year, but also including Beathard’s rookie 2017 season. Just take a look at the side-by-side comparison:

Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/21/2019.

Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/21/2019.

Beathard should get a bit of a pass for what happened his rookie season. The Niners were going through a complete rebuild, and it’s easy to argue Beathard was tossed into the fray far too soon.

That said, Beathard fared little better his second year at the pro level, aside from a handful of noteworthy performances. Mullens, meanwhile, looked far more competent over his eight-game stretch.

Case in point, Beathard’s 60.4 completion percentage and 81.8 passer rating last year would have ranked 30th and 29th, respectively, among qualifiers. Comparatively, Mullens’ 64.2 completion percentage ranked 24th, while his 90.8 passer rating ranked 23rd.

Mullens also dealt with pressure significantly better than Beathard last season. According to Pro Football Focus, Mullens’ passer rating when pressured was 53.4 with an adjusted completion percentage of 69.0. Beathard, meanwhile, posted 45.8 and 52.5 marks, respectively, in these two categories while facing pressure.

Generally speaking, Mullens was far more adept getting the ball out quicker rather than negatively reacting to pressure from defenses. That also helps explain the fewer sacks he took over a larger portion of games last season.

But there’s more here, too.

Contractually speaking, the 49ers would be better off retaining Mullens in coming seasons, given the fact his undrafted-rookie contract is far more team friendly than what Beathard is owed from being a third-round NFL Draft pick. It might not matter much now, given the Niners aren’t exactly in cap hell. In a year or two, however, San Francisco might be looking to save some cash.

This, of course, does spawn the question whether or not the 49ers would be interested in trading off Mullens, who has far more trade value than his counterpart. The Niners likely won’t keep three quarterbacks on the active roster this upcoming season, meaning one of the two probably won’t be around with the team this September.

But as Garoppolo’s season-ending ACL injury proved last season, having a competent backup quarterback is vital to any team’s success.

Granted, neither Mullens nor Beathard would ideally see any meaningful snaps in 2019, if Garoppolo stays healthy. Yet the insurance option is still critical.

With Mullens, it’s far more effective a policy and at a much lower rate.

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