Last season, the 49ers were one of a select few NFL teams that chose to keep three quarterbacks on the active roster.
Behind Jimmy Garoppolo, general manager John Lynch elected to retain both C.J. Beathard and Nick Mullens throughout the season.
Lynch has spoken about potentially trading one of his backups in recent months, but as The Athletic’s Michael Lombardi noted on his podcast, the Niners clearly hold one of them in very high regard.
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"There was about three teams trying to trade for Kyle Allen," Lombardi said on The GM Shuffle podcast. "You know what's interesting about the Kyle Allen trade? This is really interesting. The 49ers got a bunch of phone calls — when I say a bunch, a couple of teams — on Nick Mullens, the backup quarterback in San Francisco. Nick Mullens. They were asking about him, and they turned down every trade offer for Nick Mullens. They wouldn't trade him.
"Think about that. Think about that. Nick Mullens was like — Cam Newton had no value, [and] Nick Mullens [is] untradeable. Just put that in perspective for a while. Digest that."
[RELATED: Why 49ers should trade down from both first-round picks]
Mullens played admirably while filling in for Garoppolo after the signal-caller tore his ACL in Week 3 of the 2018 season. After Beathard took over initially, Mullens grabbed the reigns in Week 9 and completed just over 64 percent of his passes in eight starts, throwing 13 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.
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While having multiple security blankets behind Garoppolo is a nice insurance policy, potentially nabbing a mid-round draft pick for one of the two quarterbacks could help the team shore up another position of need.