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49ers officially name J.T. O'Sullivan the starting QB
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In the least shocking announcement in recent memory, Mike Nolan officially named J.T. O'Sullivan the starting QB for the 49ers regular season opener against Arizona.
A month ago this would obviously have taken all of us by surprise. J.T. O'Sullivan came into camp as the #3 and in fact seemed officially out of the competition early in camp. Next thing you know, Shaun Hill has a tired shoulder and gets Wally Pipped out of the rotation. Within a week O'Sullivan had surged past Alex Smith and never looked back. He struggled in the first two preseason games, although we could see some improvement from Week 1 to Week 2. Last night against the Bears he played a pretty perfect first quarter, finally locking down the starting position.
While this answers the question of the competition, the scrutiny is only beginning for O'Sullivan. There is still a large contingent of Smith and Hill fans who will not hesitate in jumping all over O'Sullivan if he struggles early. I mentioned in the recap post the other night that O'Sullivan would have some ugly mistakes and have us all pulling our hair out at times. However, I did notice that last night he minimized those. There was no pass to the wide open defensive back, which is certainly a good thing.
So, now that we have an answer, it's game time. Whether you're an O'Sullivan fan or not, this season is certainly looking a little more interesting than last year ended up. I don't know how it's gonna end but I imagine it will be a wild ride. The 49ers offense cannot be any worse than it was last year and right now it's actually looking rather decent. Preseason is always tough to judge, but I'm certainly cautiously optimistic.
