It’s another NFL offseason where the 49ers have some uncertainty under center, which means another offseason of thrusting San Francisco into various trade rumors revolving around players at the position.
This year the two names lumped in with the 49ers are Aaron Rodgers and Kirk Cousins. Because of course they are. Rodgers was connected heavily to San Francisco in 2021 before they drafted Trey Lance. Cousins has been linked to the 49ers and head coach Kyle Shanahan since 2017.
The 49ers don’t have a surefire franchise quarterback going into this season, and injuries have left Sam Darnold as the only healthy QB on the roster going into April. Trying to push a veteran signal caller to San Francisco makes sense, especially with a roster like theirs that is ready to contend for a Super Bowl.
It’s worth noting that the rumors and speculation are just that. There’s been no hard reporting about the 49ers exploring any deals. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk said on his podcast that there was “some chatter” and “some noise” among people in the league at NFL owners meetings “about Cousins being traded to the 49ers.”
This tracks from a 30,000-foot view, but there are reasons it doesn’t make sense for the 49ers to even explore such a move that we’ll get to later.
The Rodgers angle comes from Fox Sports 1 and WFAN host Craig Carton, who on his TV show Tuesday said the 49ers are ready to get involved with all of their third-round picks this year and a first-round pick next year if the Packers don’t work out a deal that sends Rodgers to the Jets.
This, again, makes sense on the surface, but even a small amount of digging shows just how far off the 49ers are from making a monster move like this.
Let’s dive into some of the issues with these moves from San Francisco’s perspective: