The 49ers lost their eighth consecutive game on Sunday and were blown out by an NFC East opponent for the second week in a row. Rookie quarterback C.J. Beathard struggled mightily once again, consistantly missing his targets while throwing two bad interceptions and averaging just 4.6 yards per completion. Through two and a half games, Beathard’s 47.4 rating on Pro Football Focus is the second worst among NFL quarterbacks behind only the Browns’ DeShone Kizer.
It should also be noted that Beathard was under consistant pressure for the second week in a row, and was sacked four times after being sacked on five occassions against Dallas. Still, Beathard seems to be lacking the spark he showed against the Redskins in his debut, and the offense has at times looked even worse than it did under Brian Hoyer.
Bay Area broadcasters John Middlekauff and Guy Haberman discussed the 49ers quarterback situation on their podcast Sunday, and both seemed to agree that the third-round pick just isn’t all that good.
Middlekauff: “I think it gets really, really ugly when it turns out C.J. Beathard’s not very talented. I talked to a quarterback coach a couple weeks ago that despised him coming out.”
Haberman: “John I’m not saying this sarcastically: I was ready to see some Brian Hoyer on Sunday. I mean it.”
M: “What’s going to look different?”
H: “Nothing but I just….I’m struggling with this.”
M: “I will say one thing you get with the C.J. experience, if you’re going to keep him as your backup, he’s really, really tough. He was getting demolished.”
H: “Hold on you said this last week, you can’t go back to tough you already did tough on C.J. Beathard.”
M: “But he’s got that going for him because he’s not very good. He’s not very good at all. And their skill guys aren’t very good.”
Middlekauff also believes that a winless season is not out of the question.
“It’s 0-16 potential,” he said. “I would say if you were going to go 0-16, it’s going to be really, really hard for Jed (York) to stomach it, everyone will just want to crucify Jed. They have Kyle (Shanahan) and John (Lynch). Just keep having them talk. Just keep having them be at the forefront.”
Listen to the full podcast below. To hear the comments about Beathard skip to 2:50.