Follow @cimini
While some of the young quarterbacks struggled in week three of the preseason, I do not believe that will be the case for Colin Kaepernick. Harbaugh has kept Kaep restricted for limited plays, and rightfully so, as the 49ers do not have the same depth at backup they did a year ago. Speaking of their quarterback depth the 49ers did trade for and land Seneca Wallace to compete against a handful of others. Those include BJ Daniels, Colt McCoy, and Scott Tolzien. In my view BJ Daniels will be kept as the third string quarterback for his upside and how well he played a week ago. The backup role will come down to McCoy, Tolzien, and Wallace.
Kaep should play the entire first half and I believe he will be eager to showcase a show. 39 is a light number especially with the backup quarterback role on the line in the second half. Daniels will likely sit, but the other three should see two to three crucial drives each, with their job riding on leading the team to points.
So far in two preseason games the Vikings have scored 13, and then 16 points respectively. For the 49ers they’ve scored just 6, and then 15 points respectively. Low outputs, but I think the play here is the over in the third week. It’s a big change to for starters to see extra series on the field from one to three in the first few weeks. They’ll make proper plays to get this game off to a 13-10 score in the 2nd quarter. In the second half I expect things to open up from the offenses as noted above. Not just the quarterbacks from San Francisco have their jobs on the line, several skill position players do.
It’s the preseason where defensive game planning for the most part is geared towards the success of the first half starters. The second half is more wide open and I expect the skill position players battling for the remainder spots to outshine the defensive backups.
Take the over on 39 points.