On Monday, San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan met with the media following the team's fourth practice of training camp and offered an analysis of rookie quarterback C.J. Beathard. The team selected Beathard in the third round of the draft.
"Just watching C.J., you can tell without even talking to him, watching him on tape, the way he processes things," Shanahan said. "He'll play in that pocket with a lot of people around him, he can get through progression. He's a very quick thinker. He'll react and let it rip. He prepares very hard. He is very intelligent.
"But there's a knack that certain people have in the pocket where they don't sit there and just freeze. Paralysis by analysis. That's one thing we saw in C.J. in college and the more he gets comfortable with the offense and stuff, he's shown it already, but the more reps and stuff he gets, that's one of his huge strengths."
During Monday's practice, Beathard had an opportunity to work with the second-team offense. 49ers.com senior reporter Joe Fann noted that Beathard has looked hot and cold during training camp.
"There's times when he's looked real great and there's times when he looked like a rookie, which is what you expect from a rookie quarterback," Fann said.
Following the draft, Shanahan went as far as to compare Beathard to Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins. Since drafting him, Shanahan has made it no secret that he loves his quarterbacks to possess a certain amount of toughness while playing the position. That means being able to stand in the pocket and make good decisions when a pass rush is coming for you – even if the protection is not good.
Shanahan prefers pocket passers versus quarterbacks who might be too quick to think of running the football themselves. On Saturday, Shanahan brought up some of the best passers in the league in recent years, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, and shared why he likes that mold of quarterback.
"I think they've always been guys who have to sit in there and look down the field and learn how to get rid of the ball and if you've been doing that since you're seven years old to the NFL, you've had a hell-of-a lot more reps than this guy who's been able to run around and make plays all the time."
During the offseason, the new 49ers regime decided against bringing back any quarterback from the 2016 roster. Instead, it brought in former Chicago Bears quarterbacks Brian Hoyer and Matt Barkley, drafted Beathard, and signed undrafted rookie Nick Mullens.
"I'll say that we run a lot of bootlegs and things like that," Shanahan said on Saturday. "Usually, the most success I've had with quarterbacks who can do that are the ones who aren't mobile, because I only want to run bootlegs and stuff if people aren't playing them and when you have a mobile guy, they're playing them. When you don't, they play the run and then you get slow quarterbacks out on the edge and they can throw all day. Not because they're just super athletes with their legs, but they're good enough to throw on the move and you can use them."
