There was a recent ESPN report that stated some within the NFL were hoping the San Francisco 49ers would trade for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles. Why would those around the league be so interested in the 49ers' roster situation? All you have to do to answer that question is look at the team's schedule — more specifically, its prime-time television schedule.
The 49ers are scheduled to play five prime-time games this season. In fact, they have five in a timespan of eight weeks right in the middle of the season. Much of that schedule was based on the 49ers having Jimmy Garoppolo at quarterback. They don't anymore after he suffered a torn ACL nearly two weeks ago.
To television networks, Garoppolo versus Jared Goff is a lot more appealing than Goff versus C.J. Beathard, especially when you consider that the league shares revenue.
Until the NFL starts handing out Super Bowl trophies for television ratings, head coach Kyle Shanahan doesn't really care what the rest of the league wants the 49ers to do. In fact, he laughed at the report.
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"It's very comical," Shanahan told reporters on Friday. "I wish we could worry about that stuff and help people out. That's definitely the last of our worries. If you guys judge us on ratings and everything and they gave us a trophy at the end of the year, a Super Bowl trophy for ratings, then I would maybe think that way. But, that's not how it works."
The 49ers have made it clear that Beathard will be the team's starting quarterback moving forward and anyone else brought in to play the position would serve a backup role.
Speaking of Beathard, he was asked a similar question on Wednesday about the ESPN report. Does the league feeling Beathard doesn't have the name recognition of others bother the quarterback?
"You've just got to not even really think about it," Beathard responded. "With the good stuff, there's bad stuff. You've got to take it both with a grain of salt and not really think about it when people are praising you and when they're bashing you because you're not doing well. It's how sports are. It's all ebbs and flows.
"When things are good, you're on top of the world; people praise you. When things are bad, they'll bash you, and you've just got to take both of those the same way and not even acknowledge anything on the outside."