San Francisco 49ers quarterback C.J. Beathard entered the short week with injuries to his right wrist and thumb. He was listed as questionable for Thursday night's game at Levi's Stadium against the Oakland Raiders.
Beathard is not healthy enough to start for San Francisco, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN.
That means Nick Mullens will make not only his first career start but his NFL debut when the 49ers take the field on Thursday night. He appeared in all four exhibition games this season while completing 72.1 percent of his passes for 396 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions. Mullens also had two rushing touchdowns during the preseason.
San Francisco's starting QB tonight against the Oakland Raiders will be Nick Mullens, per source.
C.J. Beathard will serve as his backup, but with his wrist injury affecting his grip on the football, Mullens will make his first NFL start and throw his first NFL pass.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 1, 2018
Beathard will be active. The 49ers waived emergency quarterback Tom Savage on Thursday afternoon. Beathard and Mullens are the only other quarterbacks on the roster.
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Mullens, like Beathard, is a second-year player. While the 49ers drafted Beathard during the third round of last year's draft, Mullens was signed as an undrafted free agent and spent all of last season on the practice squad. He received all of the practice reps this week in place of the injured Beathard. Each of those two practices was a walk-through, though.
"Nick's getting all the reps in practice," head coach Kyle Shanahan said during a KNBR interview on Wednesday. "They're all walk-through reps. You can't do anything full-speed this week. The guys are still trying to recover from the game from three days ago. Thursday nights are always a little bit different."
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Beathard could not grip a football on Monday or Tuesday. By Wednesday, he was able to do so, head coach Kyle Shanahan told Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area.
Beathard has completed 60.4 percent of his passes for 1,252 yards this season with eight touchdowns and seven interceptions. He also has a rushing touchdown. Sunday's loss to the Arizona Cardinals represented Beathard's first start without throwing an interception since October 22, 2017.
