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The San Francisco 49ers were expected to have a quarterback competition this summer, with Blaine Gabbert and Colin Kaepernick battling it out during the preseason for the right to be Chip Kelly's starter. Things didn't exactly work out that way. An injury to Kaepernick kept him off the field for much of camp as well as the first two preseason games, so Gabbert had taken pretty much all the reps with the starters and had the job essentially wrapped up by the time Kap made his preseason debut.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that has watched Gabbert throughout his career that having him under center has not exactly worked out through the early part of the season for San Francisco. The Niners are 1-4 after Thursday night's loss to the Cardinals and Gabbert is, well, struggling. He's 78 of 150 (58 percent) for 890 yards (5.9 per attempt), five touchdowns and six picks in their five games. He's topped 200 passing yards just once in five games.

During the Niners' loss to Arizona, the fans in San Francisco made it known that they wanted to see Kaepernick on the field.

They may soon get their wish. Asked whether he might make a change at quarterback soon, coach Chip Kelly responded, "We're going to look at everything."


The fact that he's done a great job running the offense in practice has often been put forth as a rationale for Gabbert having the job -- including on the broadcast of the "Thursday Night Football" game against Arizona. Here's what Kelly had to say about that:

"Blaine has done a really nice job in practice, yes," he said. "I would expect us to execute in practice now. It's a controlled environment; you're in a lot of trouble if you're not having any success in practice, either. I think that's what we have to make sure we can do is can we take it from the practice field to the game field, and we're not doing that right now on the offensive side of the ball."

That is not exactly a ringing endorsement of his play, so maybe a move to Kap is coming sooner than we think.

Kaepernick's play fell off hard in 2014 and 2015 from where he was at his pick, but even his disastrous play that led to his getting benched last season was better than what Gabbert has shown so far this year (comparable completion percentage but better TD-INT ratio and yards per attempt). He also has significantly more upside than Gabbert; it was only a few years ago that he looked like one of the best young quarterbacks in all of football.