There have indeed been many “weird situations” with the 49ers’ quarterback position in recent years, from decisions made and not made to injuries suffered to trades not accomplished to a recent trade that happened with grease-through-a-goose alacrity.
Another unresolved “weird situation” relates to the suspicion in some circles that Trey Lance, the player in whom the 49ers invested three first-round picks and a third-round pick, had fallen not to third string before being dealt to the Cowboys but to fourth, behind Brandon Allen.
The fact that the 49ers kept Allen on the 53-man roster bolsters the notion that Lance was QB4, behind the former Bengals backup. On Wednesday, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan was asked about the decision to keep Allen on the 53-man roster, with the implication being that Allen might have been claimed on waivers.
“We had pretty good knowledge that we think he would’ve got claimed,” Shanahan said. “If there was a third quarterback out there you could put on your practice squad you felt as good with, then it wouldn’t be an issue. But when he’s going to get claimed and how he feel about him, it was important to keep him.”
The “weird situation” about that response comes from the fact that Allen would not have been subject to waivers, and thus couldn’t have been “claimed.” He’s a vested veteran. He has six years of accrued service. The 49ers could have released him from the 53-man roster and re-signed him to the practice squad without exposing him to waivers.
It could be a matter of semantics, obviously. If Allen had been released, he would have had the right to sign elsewhere. But that’s something Shanahan, G.M. John Lynch, and/or Allen could have worked out in advance. And maybe the truth is that Allen would have made a beeline back to the Bengals, or perhaps elsewhere, if he’d been freed by the 49ers.
Or maybe the simple truth is that Shanahan wasn’t really thinking about possibly slipping Allen through to the practice squad at all. Maybe the 49ers have viewed him throughout the offseason and training camp as a potentially key piece of the roster, especially since the 49ers need to have three quarterbacks in the event that (as happened last year) the “weird situation” is that two or more quarterbacks suffer serious injuries.
So here are the potential explanations for the answer given on Wednesday, regarding Allen: Shanahan misspoke or he didn’t realize Allen isn’t subject to waivers or Shanahan simply wanted to change the subject on his affinity for Allen before someone asked him the to-date-unasked question of whether Allen and not Lance had won the third-string quarterback job for 2023.
The first one is possible, the second is unlikely, and the third counts as a conspiracy theory that has a chance of being dead-on balls accurate.