Why 49ers have no quarterback controversy; at least not yet

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Have faith, 49ers fans. Do not let hope die. Soon enough, you’ll get the quarterback controversy/mindless bickerage you’ve begged for since last November. It’ll just take a regular season game or two. Or three.

Of course, it also might not happen at all. But Friday night kicked the can down the road well into September and maybe into October -– as sensible people all knew it would.

There hasn’t been this desperately begged-for controversy since Colin Kaepernick was demoted. There wasn’t one when he was allegedly being traded. There wasn’t one during OTAs, there isn’t one in training camp, there wasn’t one during Friday’s grindingly dull 21-10 loss to Green Bay, and there certainly isn’t one now.

Chip Kelly said nothing of substance on the matter. He didn’t intend to. He doesn’t have to.

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But maybe things will go south once the regular season starts and you can gin up an argument with more data than you have now. Maybe events can smoke him out after a few regular season games. Maybe there is fun to extract from the apparently forlorn season after all.

For now though, this: Blaine Gabbert remains the starting quarterback, and Kaepernick is a very distant second. It is as Trent Baalke wanted it last year, it is as Kelly wants it now. Gabbert had to get much worse, get hurt or get deported to lose the starting job, and anyone who thought otherwise, even if it was just to work up a good argument or media debate segment between for-hire nitwits, was simply refusing to pay attention.

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At all.

For the record, Kaepernick was not good Friday night, but as he hadn’t played a meaningful moment since November, that only figured. He put the ball under his arm when in doubt, and doubt crept in about the time he threw his second near-pick -– in his first of three flat possessions.

Now Gabbert wasn’t much better, though he did guide the employees to their only touchdown. And frankly, Christian Ponder was wearing a duplicate number when he came into the game, so for all we know, he might have been punter Bradley Pinion taking some snaps (and throwing an interception) on some Jarryd Hayne-fueled lark.

But a quarterback controversy requires a backup who is close to winning the job from a frustrating starter, or impressing the coaches enough to make them think about it. These conditions did not and do not exist, and it doesn’t matter how many times you desperately raise the subject, they will not exist until Chip Kelly decides that Gabbert isn’t the guy for him.

And that moment may never happen. He could play well, or at least well enough to hold serve. The 49ers could win games with their defense. The NFC West could be worse than we suspect, or the schedule easier. We allow for all eventualities here.

But not the one in which Kaepernick wins enough favor to change an organizational strategy that has been in the works for months, or his own recalcitrance, or the injury that made any notional rapprochement possible.

Only an injury to or massive regression from Gabbert would cause that, and you, as a 49er fan, will have to decide how badly you want your quarterback controversy.

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If you want to back a winner, you have to want Gabbert to succeed. If you want to have the quarterback argument, you have to hope the offense collapses in a heap –- which, frankly, is the position from which it begins after last year’s rolling disaster.

In short, this season is not so much a referendum on the 49ers, but on you, and what you want most from this football season. The 49er fan has a proud tradition of hating the starter and pleading for the backup going back to the early John Brodie years, and the 20 years in which it had to suffer through successive Hall of Famers in Joe Montana and Steve Young is known by controversy aficionados as “the dark times.”

Kaepernick, on the other hand, was delivered to us as a gift from the gods -– or, well, Jim Harbaugh when he decided to sour on Alex Smith. And when he lost the job to Gabbert, those were heady times for tavern debaters as well.

But not now. There is no argument to have –- people will look at you like you are an idiot if you try (and if you do try, you will be an idiot).

You still have the regular season, to be sure -– 16 games to decide what kind of fan you want to be. That’s what seasons like this are for -– to see what the team looks like, and what your will to persevere will be. You’ll just have to be patient a few more weeks. Or, if things go well for a team starved for any good news, months.

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