Are the 49ers really going to keep four quarterbacks? Head coach Kyle Shanahan hasn’t taken the idea off the table. And it’s hard to blame him given the turbulence at the position last year that ultimately led to their demise in the NFC championship game.
However, the reality of the situation is that rosters are limited to just 53 players and even keeping a third (which they’ll very likely do) forces the club to make a concession elsewhere on the roster.
General manager John Lynch discussed how keeping a fourth signal caller would put their roster in a bind at another position, but we decided to see exactly what it might look like if the 49ers went the extreme route of rostering four (4) quarterbacks on the 53-man roster.
Using our most recent roster projection just for the sake of the experiment (the points still stand regardless of which players are involved), we went position-by-position to first see if the team can even cut down at that spot. Then if there is any wiggle room to lose one on the roster, we took a look at which player might be on the chopping block at that position.
Spoiler alert: It’s not easy finding room for a fourth QB.