The San Francisco 49ers have made an intriguing move, signing Tom Savage and answering the prolonging question of whether they’d bring in another quarterback due to the injury to Jimmy Garoppolo.
San Francisco 49ers Signing Tom Savage: What It Means
It’s not a surprise that they decided to bring in another quarterback, although the timing of the move and the actual guy signed is a bit curious.
Before Savage was officially signed, the only quarterbacks on the active roster for the 49ers were C.J. Beathard and Nick Mullens.
Beathard has committed costly turnovers this season but is coming off what was maybe the best game of his entire career in Week Six at Lambeau Field against the Green Bay Packers.
It’s interesting that the team felt it was time to bring in another quarterback after Beathard showed such improvement in his most recent game.
It might be less about Beathard and more about Mullens, though. Mullens has never played an NFL down and was undrafted.
The 49ers might not feel entirely comfortable if Beathard were to get injured and Mullens was forced into the game.
Kyle Shanahan is indicating that Savage is going to start as the number three quarterback on the depth chart, which makes sense given his lack of familiarity with the offense.
Savage hasn’t put up very good numbers in his NFL career, but at least he has experience as a starter, which should make it likely he’d eventually usurp Mullens as the number two guy on the depth chart.
Interesting Timing With the Signing
If they felt unsure of Mullens all along, though, it’s weird that it took them three weeks after Garoppolo tore his ACL to sign another quarterback.
They worked out a handful of quarterbacks the week immediately following the Garoppolo injury, and Savage was one of those guys.
It’s unclear why they didn’t sign Savage three weeks ago if they were eventually going to bring him onto the team.
Shanahan’s offense is notoriously difficult to learn, and Savage could have been learning the offense these past three weeks if they had signed him immediately after the Garoppolo injury.
It’s not like bringing in another quarterback is a bad idea, but at this point in time, it raises some eyebrows for numerous reasons.
The first reason being that Savage seemingly wasn’t enticing immediately following the Garoppolo injury, so what has changed in these previous three weeks?
Beathard just played his best game thus far of the year, and Mullens has been becoming more familiar with the offense.
It has to be that the team is making this roster move in response to something related to either Beathard or Mullens.
It’s probably more about Mullens because, from a talent perspective, there isn’t a big gap between Beathard and Savage.
Given Beathard’s familiarity with this offense, he gives the 49ers a better chance to win games than Savage does, especially since Savage has been denied these last three weeks to try to get up to speed with the playbook.
Savage has played 13 games in his career and started nine of those games. He has a 57.5 completion percentage for 2,000 yards, five touchdowns, seven interceptions, and a 72.5 passer rating.
It’s certainly debatable if Savage was the best quarterback available as a free agent, but it’s not like there’s going to be an especially impressive group to choose from this deep into the season.
Shanahan made the determination that Savage fits the best into his scheme amongst the available free agent quarterbacks.
It just seems odd that this move wasn’t made three weeks ago so Savage could get more time to learn this offense if he needs to play.
If depth concerns motivated this move, why did the team wait three weeks to sign him while Beathard and Mullens were the only quarterbacks on the roster?
Something Beathard or Mullens have done in the previous few weeks must have prompted this move to be made now.
Beathard has certainly played better this year than he did last year, so it’s weird that they saw improvement from Beathard and then made this move instead of making it immediately when Beathard was thrust into the starting lineup.
It looks like a lost season for the 49ers at this point anyway, so it’s not like this Savage signing is really going to make a huge impact.
The timing of it is just confusing, and it’s going to be fascinating to see if the depth chart is altered at all in the next few weeks.
