The San Francisco 49ers opened their first training camp under new head coach Chip Kelly on Sunday. Needless to say, the biggest question surrounding this fledgling franchise is the quarterback situation.
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past several months, you know full well that there’s a full-fledged quarterback competition taking place in San Francisco.
In the lead up to camp, various reports had Blaine Gabbert ahead of Colin Kaepernick in the pecking order (more on that here).
This makes some sense considering the latter didn’t necessarily have the ability to engage in off-season activities after going through numerous surgeries.
Though, Kelly himself might have thrown a bit of a curve ball into the equation on Sunday, telling reporters that the two quarterbacks will split first-team reps.
“We are going to split it right down the middle. I think we’ve got 24 reps today with the ones,” Kelly said, via NFL.com. “So Colin (Kaepernick) and Blaine (Gabbert) will split it right down the middle with the ones and twos.”
Recency bias tells us a story of a quarterback in Gabbert that performed better than his counterpart last season.
The former Jacksonville Jaguars top-10 pick threw 10 touchdowns compared to seven interceptions while completing 63 percent of his passes in eight starts last season.
Meanwhile, Kaepernick put up just six scores and averaged 179.4 passing yards in his eight starts.
Both quarterbacks seem to be good fits in Kelly’s fast-paced, spread-em out offense. Kaepernick’s athleticism is by now well known. Though, Gabbert himself put up nearly six yards per rush attempt last season.
The reality of the situation is that we likely won’t have much of an understanding of where Kelly is leaning until a couple preseason games have been played.
Once San Francisco lines up for that all-important third game later this summer, whoever is under center will likely be the Week 1 starter.