​We've Reached Our Blaine Gabbert Quota For The Year, 49ers

In Thursday night's embarrassing pillow fight between the 49ers and the Cardinals, San Francisco quarterback Blaine Gabbert was the worst player on the field. Worse than his slow wide receivers. Worse than Arizona's backup guards. Worse than Drew Stanton desperately trying to execute a Bruce Arians playbook.

Gabbert took seven sacks, ran towards the line of scrimmage when he didn't have to multiple times, and worst of all, attempted passes. Here's a couple of lowlights:

On a play-by-play basis, Gabbert has been an abject disaster for the 49ers. If only they owned televisions while Gabbert played with Jacksonville, maybe this whole thing could have been avoided.

Head coach Chip Kelly gave a non-answer when asked about benching Gabbert last night, saying that "everything" on offense would be evaluated after this game. He even went as far as to emphasize how great a job Gabbert does in practice.

Look, the 49ers can't be candid about the Colin Kaepernick situation, and that's fine. Kaepernick's $14.5 million base salary in 2017 is guaranteed for injury, meaning if he goes out on the field and gets hurt, the 49ers are on the hook for it. That's pretty much the only reason to not play him over Gabbert, and it's not really much of one to begin with. The 49ers are $44 million under the cap this year and project to be $46 million under it in 2017 with Kaepernick. Combine that with free agents repeatedly shunning San Francisco overtures, and it's almost impossible for them to be cap-strapped no matter what happens to Kaepernick.

But if that's their stance with Kaepernick, then let's look past it. The 49ers are 1-4 in the toughest division in football. They had a 3.6% chance to make the playoffs, per Football Outsiders simulations, before they lost last night. The answer doesn't have to be Kaepernick. This is a situation crying out for a risk on the next Tyrod Taylor or Trevor Siemian.

We have four years of evidence that Gabbert isn't an NFL starter. I'm not sure he's even an NFL backup, frankly. The first plan was probably to use the end of the season to evaluate sixth-round pick Jeff Driskel. But the club released Driskel at final cuts hoping to sneak him onto the practice squad, and Cincinnati claimed him. The only other quarterback in their organization is Christian Ponder, another first-round bust from the disastrous 2011 quarterback class.

But here's the thing: it literally doesn't matter what inexperienced quarterback the 49ers start. That quarterback has a higher chance of being a solution at the position than Blaine Gabbert does. It doesn't matter if it's a practice squad guy like Kevin Hogan or Matt Barkley. It doesn't matter if they trade a pick for someone like Brett Hundley. It doesn't matter if they sign a younger free agent.

This 49ers season is a waste of time, and thankfully it's done being broadcast on national television. But for the sake of their fans and outside observers, they could at least be interestingly bad. Starting Gabbert is like forcing an According To Jim marathon on the nation.