I get it. Guys like Grant Cohn over at Bleacher Report get paid to make stupid statements that will trigger lots of backlinks and heated discussion on the Web. Most of the time, I just shrug and let it pass.
![blaine_gabbert](http://www.danshaferblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/blaine_gabbert.jpeg)
SF 49ers Backup QB Blaine Gabbert
But Cohn’s latest hypothesis that the Niners can just release their multi-year starting QB Colin Kaepernick without a backward glance because his sub Blaine Gabbert “showed he deserves to be the starting quarterback in 2016” by his mostly mediocre but winning performance against Da Bears on Sunday.
Gimme a freaking break, Grant!
I mean, seriously. I don’t fault the Niners for benching Kaep, even though I think he was probably responsible for only about 1/3 of his declining performance. Lousy head coaching and piss-poor game planning had a lot more to do with his drop than anything else. But no team fires a newly hired “head” coach halfway through his first season; to do so would be to admit the Head Shed made a mistake and Head Sheds never do that.
But Gabbert “posted a passer rating of 64.5 until the final play of overtime (more on that below) and led the offense to just 14 points the first four quarters,” as Cohn himself pointed out. His big recommendation for a starting job in 2016? “He didn’t make any mistakes.” Well, whoopty-do. It was bad enough Cohn said that “he played like the second coming of Alex Smith,” (a ridiculously over-the-top statement akin to the ravings of The Donald) but then he had the audacity to opine that, “with the game on the line, Gabbert played like the second coming of Steve Young.”
SERIOUSLY??!!!
You gotta be kidding me!
It’s one thing to troll for feedback, dude, but when you go so over the top that your readers have trouble picking themselves up off the floor after rolling there for laughter for several minutes, you might want to re-think your occupation.
Gabbert deserves to be in the mix for 2016. He may, by the end of the season and based only on sustained performance, even deserve to be the default starter. But Kaep was a way-above-average QB for too many seasons to let one mediocre campaign sideline him forever when the real problem was his “head” coach and management.
I can guarantee you this. If the Niners dump Kaep, the team that picks him up will be laughing all the way to the playoff bank. And if the Niners don’t dump “head” coach Jim Tomsula, Niners’ fans can expect 2-4 more years of the same crappy football we put up with this season. But at least Jed York and Trent Baalke’s egos will remain intact.
Yeesh.