Josh Rosen is on the move again. The former top-10 pick ended up lasting through just one preseason game in San Francisco, with the 49ers opting to cut him Tuesday, Mike Garafolo of NFL.com tweets. Rosen has since cleared waivers, moving into free agency.
The 49ers poached the UCLA alum off the Buccaneers’ practice squad late last season, but signs this relationship was not prospering emerged recently. Kyle Shanahan said Rosen was not impressing in practice, and the once-coveted quarterback prospect noted that he was not seeing much time at 49ers workouts in the first place. Rosen did not impress in the 49ers’ preseason opener against the Chiefs.
While the 49ers were open to keeping both Rosen and third-string QB competitor Nate Sudfeld, with the loser being stashed on the team’s practice squad, Rosen being cut this early points to him needing to find a new home. The young passer has already been with four teams despite being drafted just three years ago.
The Cardinals, Dolphins, Bucs and 49ers have now punted on Rosen. Only the Cards received value for doing so, with the Dolphins sending them a second-round pick in the teams’ 2019 trade. The Dolphins waived Rosen ahead of the 2020 season, leading him to the Bucs’ practice squad. The Bucs did not opt to move the pocket passer onto their roster to stop the 49ers from adding him to theirs. Now, the 49ers have seen enough, inviting questions about Rosen’s future in the NFL.
Sudfeld, a longtime Eagles third- or second-string QB, is now in line to serve as the 49ers’ third-stringer behind Jimmy Garoppolo and Trey Lance. Neither Sudfeld nor Rosen received any 11-on-11 reps in this week’s practices, per Matt Barrows of The Athletic (on Twitter). Having played just one full college season, Lance will certainly need as much practice work as possible as he transitions to the pros.
More like wave goodbye to him
Could be the back up in NYJ
Unless LaFleur was impressed by him last year, I’m not sure the Jets give him a shot after he failed while practicing with the 49ers.
I was thinking backup in Dallas
Tom Savage is waiting for a call.
Couldn’t have happened to a better guy when he came out of UCLA.
He’s the guy that said Alabama players were too stupid to succeed in college (pass the ACT or SAt one of the 2). Well, they certainly fair better in the NFL!
*fare
good, clear it out. in jimmy we trust! trey is the future! #keepthefaith
I’ve never seen a player get so absolutely broken by a franchise. Not by himself, but by its circumstances. The Cardinals’ selection and handling of Rosen is a how-to of how NOT to do a rebuild. Hire a first year defensive coach that you don’t plan to keep, fire your offensive coordinator midseason with no change in result, field a line made up of third stringers and a receiving corps made of practice squad players other than Fitz…
I can’t even really blame Rosen because of any team treated its presumed franchise starter the way they with that roster backing him, they’d be unsuccessful too. Rosen may never have been good, or he may have ended up being solid, but he never actually a decent chance to show us which it would be.
Then you obviously never paid attention to the Browns 2.0 whose QB turnstile was a joke. Being in a new GM, new coach, new QB and repeat. Take the QB and throw them out there unprepared with no weapons and little protection and when they didn’t succeed try the next one. So many QBs had their development stunted before it ever really started. Whose to say if Aaron Rodgers doesn’t go to Cleveland as a rookie and get thrown right into the fire bombs that he has the career he has had by coming along so slowly? And what I’d say Brady Quinn sat the bench in GB for 3-4, learning and developing and then got behind a good line with good weapons and a solid gameplay that he doesn’t have a much better career?
We could probably say the same about Darnold and the Jets. Hopefully he rebounds with Joe Brady in Carolina, although the interior of the offensive line could certainly stand to improve. That said, the weapons are vastly superior to what he had in New York
Those are all fair points. Granted, the Browns did come under a lot of scrutiny for those choices though, while the Cardinals seemingly got five minutes of questions before everyone launched into how generational a talent Murray was and forgot how poorly they handled the rebuild attempt a year prior. At least, that’s how it seemed to me. Those Browns also had occasional talent-Joe Thomas being one, Josh Gordon another. Those QBs sometimes got more than a year. The Cards had literally nobody but Fitz and Chandler Jones-checking that roster is pretty painful.
I agree with the point regarding Darnold, but I will say that he at least had a few years to be a starter. The reason I say that Rosen’s case was particularly bad was that the Cards seemed to treat that entire year as a free trial run, just throwing out that entire effort as if it never happened. I guess Keim had that sort of job security, but he really screwed his coach and quarterback pretty heavily that year.
Weren’t there questions about his attitude coming out of college?
Yes there certainly was.
Thanks!
One of the biggest busts in the past decade…..hope he catches on somewhere and can make clipboard QB money.
So who was paying this guy?
Didn’t he have a guaranteed
4 year deal as a top 10 pick?
Or was his bonus the only guarantee?
No he only got year one paid in full. 17 million. Since then he’s made an additional 200k or so.
Thanks!
Joey Harrington 2.0
Worse.
Rosen doesn’t love football. He was simply blessed with the physical stature and the skills to play it well at the HS and college levels. Just like Dwayne Haskins, all the draft “experts” overlooked the fact that his UCLA career was all about what playing quarterback could do for him *off* the field.
Honestly? A good backup option for Mahomes.
I could see him doing better in a West Coast offense like Reid’s (most would, of course, and Rosen obviously would not be taking the same complement of deep shots that Mahomes has in there). Shanahan apparently didn’t give Rosen many reps, but whether that’s Rosen’s fault for not living up to expectations or Shanahan’s for ignoring him I can’t say. Rosen possibly could have nothing left, but if he does have something, he’d be a younger option than Henne was or Moore was. Reid may give him more of a chance to progress with reps than Rosen got in either of his last two stops. Again, if he’s got anything left, that is-I wouldn’t be surprised if his horrible career trajectory ruined whatever confidence he may have had.
Wasn’t Rosen inconsistent even at UCLA?