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You know you’ve reached an exciting point in the season when you’re debating Nick Mullens or C.J. Beathard. That’s the good stuff, folks. Which poison pill do you want? Don’t stress, because whatever option you choose, you’re probably screwed.
Fun times.
There was a moment—or dozen—in the second half, when it seemed like Mullens would get the hook from Kyle Shanahan. He’d overthrown or underthrown or just… not thrown the ball to almost every receiver, and with the 49ers approaching the red zone, trailing just 16-7, there was some hope.
Then, Mullens threw a ball to a Kyle Juszczyk he expected to be in the flat. Juszczyk wasn’t there, but Washington’s Kamren Curl was, and Curl returned it 76 yards for a backbreaking pick-six.
Did Shanahan consider yanking Mullens at that point? Yes.
He said he changed his mind after Mullens followed up that failure with a scoring drive, capped off by a six-yard Kyle Juszczyk reception and two-point conversion to Kendrick Bourne.
“I did after the pick-six,” Shanahan said. “But I wanted to give C.J. a chance to warm up. So he was warming up during the next drive and during the next drive, Nick made made some big third downs and we went down there and scored, so after he took us on a scoring drive, I changed my mind.”
In short, Shanahan said he wanted to give Beathard time to warm up. Logically, though, he’s thrown Beathard in without that time before, and seemed more like he wanted Mullens to give him a reason to stick with him. With that touchdown drive, Mullens did just that.
Mullens, who finished 25-of-45 with 260 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT, said he wasn’t aware of that pending decision, so this was not a case of Shanahan using it as a motivator.
“I didn’t know that,” Mullens said. “We did not discuss that.”