Former exec pitches rule change after NFC Championship Game

Aside from a nice touchdown run from Christian McCaffrey to temporarily tie things, nothing went right for the San Francisco 49ers during the NFC Championship Game against the Philadelphia Eagles. The most notable wrongdoing for San Francisco occurred at the quarterback position. Brock Purdy, the team’s third starter of the season, left with an arm injury and was replaced by Josh Johnson. Johnson later suffered a concussion protocol, leading to Purdy’s return, though he barely passed.

Mike Tannenbaum, a longtime general manager and current ESPN analyst pitched an idea for a rule change on Twitter.

“Taking nothing away from how well the Eagles are playing, it’s pretty evident why the league needs to reinstate the third-QB rule,” Tannenbaum tweeted. “Not having three bona fide quarterbacks available for each team is a terrible look for the sport.”

Tannenbaum recently pitched that the Chicago Bears should draft a quarterback first overall and trade Justin Fields. That idea was not well received. This one, however, got a lot of agreement.

https://twitter.com/shockadopolis/status/1619822063329624064

People disagreed with Tannenbaum, as well and the primary feeling among those dissenters was that in this situation, it wouldn’t have mattered. That’s almost certainly true. San Francisco was down two touchdowns at the time Purdy returned to the game. And in all honesty, Purdy passing so little in his return probably kept things from getting more out of hand. If the 49ers were passing more (especially with an injured Purdy or third-stringer), they would have been more vulnerable to sacks and turnovers.

That said, nowhere did Tannenbaum say that the 49ers would have won if they had a real third-string quarterback. But this wasn’t an early-season game. San Francisco had to win this to keep its season going. From the time Purdy came back in until the end of the game, the 49ers threw only three passes and one of those was from McCaffrey, a running back. That’s unheard of in the postseason, when there’s nothing to lose by passing when your team is way down. When it happens, it’s not a good look.

An option would be to allow teams to carry a third quarterback without it counting against their active roster. If that quarterback has to go into the game, neither the listed starter nor second-stringer can return, even if they return to complete health. If a team wants the security of a third quarterback but doesn’t want to be hamstrung by that restriction, it could then carry three quarterbacks on the main roster.

The point of this suggestion isn’t to poke holes at Philadelphia’s win. It’s simply to try to correct a glaring flaw that was exposed in it.

[Mike Tannenbaum on Twitter]