When Blaine Gabbert took over from #Colin Kaepernick as the #San Francisco 49ers’ starting quarterback midway through the 2015 season, it appeared as if the ostensible #NFL draft bust may have been a late bloomer after all.
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Even with the room for improvement, the 49ers have seven offensive touchdowns through two games and are averaging 27.5 points per contest.
“He’s our starter. I’ve got a lot of confidence in Blaine”, coach Chip Kelly said Monday, a day after his team fell 46-27 to the Carolina Panthers. It’s about everybody on offense playing better now.
“He’s our starter and I have a lot of confidence in Blaine”, Kelly told reporters.
“It’s a combination of things”, Kelly said of Gabbert’s poor numbers. We’re not thinking about not having Blaine in there. Although Gabbert was not able to successfully lead the team to victory, he was able to make touchdown passes.
While Gabbert threw for 243 yards and two touchdowns, he also tossed a pair of late interceptions and was sacked twice. “The receivers and I have got to be on the same page throughout the entire game and get the ball down the field, get the perimeter passes going and just get this offense on track”. Gabbert’s completion percentage is in line with his career number (55.8). “We had five drops, and I think it’s imperative that we can do a better job catching the football”.
“It’s coming back up”, Kelly said of Kaepernick’s weight. Kelly said the 28-year-old has not yet regained his strength and weight after undergoing multiple surgeries on his shoulder, thumb and knee last year. “You just don’t go from where he was to, I think his ideal playing weight when you ask Kaep is about 225”. Kelly said last week that Kaepernick was getting about three of the 12 first-team reps in practice.
– Kelly said he hadn’t talked with Anthony Davis, who didn’t travel to Carolina after reporting concussion symptoms following Thursday’s practice. If you are, it’s not going to be a good 225. It’s something that he’s working extremely hard at. “We’ll continue to see how it goes and how he develops”.
“It’s a about building himself back up and getting himself kind of where he feels and you can see where he’s comfortable in being able to play”. “. You don’t know what you’re gonna get. Throw the ball a little bit more”.
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And if you also take Sunday’s subpar performance with Gabbert’s solid-but-unspectacular Week 1 performance against the Los Angeles Rams, he is now tied this season as the third-lowest ranked quarterback in terms of QB rating.
