
SANTA CLARA – Most eyes will be on Colin Kaepernick on Friday night, as he plays his first preseason game in Chip Kelly’s offense.
Meanwhile, Blaine Gabbert will be minding his own business when the 49ers face the Green Bay Packers at Levi's Stadium.
“I’m just worried about the things really that I can control, the things that I put on the field and the way I lead these guys and lead this football team,” Gabbert said.
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Gabbert enters Game 3 of the 49ers’ exhibition season as the favorite to emerge as the team’s starting quarterback to open the regular season. If for no other reason, Gabbert has a good understand of Kelly’s system, according to Kelly himself, and he has logged far more practice snaps than Kaepernick through the offseason program and training camp.
Gabbert started both exhibition games, and he also took part in a joint practice against the Houston Texans and two against the Denver Broncos.
The onus is clearly on Kaepernick to make good decisions and run the offense as it has been taught.
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Gabbert and Kaepernick started eight games apiece last season. Gabbert’s numbers were slightly better, but Kaepernick was playing with a left shoulder, right thumb and left knee that would require surgery and keep him off the field for most of the offseason program.
In two starts in the exhibition season, Gabbert has completed just 52.6 percent of his attempts (10 of 19), but he has earned high marks for throwing no interceptions and taking no sacks.
What does Gabbert need to do to win the competition?
“Deliver the ball accurately and on time, leading the guys on offense and putting up points,” he said. “Just playing the quarterback position the way the coaches want you to.”
The last time Kelly had a quarterback competition in training camp, he announced the winner after two games. In the summer of 2013, he named Michael Vick as the Philadelphia Eagles’ starting quarterback over Nick Foles. That gave Vick the opportunity to play 46 snaps (63-percent play time) in the Eagles' third exhibition game.
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The focus of Friday’s game is not so much to get the starting quarterback prepared for the regular season, but to continue the evaluation to determine who will start Sept. 12 when the 49ers open the regular season against the Los Angeles Rams. After all, the third exhibition game is usually when the anointed starters see extended action.
“This is really a big dress rehearsal leading into the regular season,” Gabbert said. “And you approach any game as if it’s a regular season game, but this is usually the dry run for the regular season and we just want to keep improving on what we’ve done in the first two games and just get better from that.”
Gabbert's two appearances thus far have been far from perfect, but the offense ended with touchdown drives in both games. Gabbert led the 49ers on three offensive possessions in the games against Houston and Denver.
“The more extended time you play in a game the more in rhythm you’re going to get as an offense and the more drives you’re going to have that score points,” Gabbert said. “So I’m looking forward to kind of playing for an extended period of time here to get into the flow of the game and produce on the field.”
But it’s unclear exactly how much he will play on Friday night, as conventional wisdom is that Kelly needs to see more of Kaepernick to make up for lost time. Kaepernick went 11 days without practicing after experiencing arm fatigue after nine practices.
Gabbert handled all of the 49ers’ first-team practice snaps during the time Kaepernick was sidelined. This week, the two quarterbacks were back to sharing repetitions.
“Each rep is a piece of gold,” Gabbert said. “You’ve got to treat that and cherish it because you’ve got to make the most of that opportunity because that’s kind of what helps you leading into these games, getting reps in practice."