The NFL owners at their annual meetings in Arizona did not approve any rule changes that would allow a team an emergency third quarterback to avoid the issue the 49ers ran into in the NFC championship game. While nothing was approved in March, there could still be some change before the start of the regular season.
NBC Sports Bay Area’s Matt Maiocco tweeted that there’s support for a rule change per the chair of the NFL competition committee Rich McKay, but the details of such a change are still being ironed out. Another vote on the rule could come in May.
Teams are allowed to dress 46 players on game days with 53 on the active roster, and using one of those roster spots on a third QB means eliminating depth at another position and/or a special teams contributor. There’ll be some details to work out as far as roster size expansion, practice squad usage and game day activations so it’s not necessarily a straightforward change.
Any kind of rule that allows the 49ers (or any team) to avoid rolling out a QB with a torn UCL would be welcome though, and it appears with three capable QBs on their roster that San Francisco is gearing up for some sort of change.
