Rookie contract hero: Can the 49ers eventually turn dirt-cheap Nick Mullens into a trade chip?

Technically, this isn’t Mullens’ rookie contract, which makes things much worse for him.

Dec 13, 2018, 4:00 PM UTC

Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images

The NFL’s latest projections are out, and the league’s salary cap is expected to jump from $177.2 million to somewhere between $187 and $191.1 million in 2019. That means teams are going to have a lot of money to throw around at unproven players, hoping to strike gold.

And 49ers quarterback Nick Mullens, the man responsible for 67 percent of his team’s wins this season, won’t be one of them.

It took a branching tree of circumstance for Mullens to even earn his shot in the league, but he’s made the most of his under-the-radar audition so far. In his first five games as a pro, the Southern Mississippi product is throwing for a shade under 296 yards per game. His 8.5 yards per pass would rank fifth in the NFL among qualified passers, comfortably ahead of quarterbacks like Russell Wilson, Carson Wentz, Tom Brady, and Aaron Rodgers.

That’s a small sample size, but it’s enough to dramatically boost Mullens’ value in a league where a rising tide of offense is making quarterback play more important than ever before. We’ve recently seen passers like Case Keenum, Nick Foles, and especially San Francisco starter Jimmy Garoppolo turn a limited run of successful starts into eight-figure salaries. If he can keep this pace up for the next three weeks, Mullens may be able to do the same.

Just not until 2021.

Mullens is in his first active year in the league, but isn’t technically on his rookie contract. In fact, the pact he signed to join the Niners’ active roster in September was actually his third deal with the proper club — he’d been waived twice and spent all of 2017 and 23 days of 2018 on his team’s practice squad before earning his spot behind then-starter C.J. Beathard on Sept. 26. Regardless, he’s still a dirt-cheap young prospect, so we’ll bend the rules for him. Let’s take a deeper look at the player currently throwing a wrench in the Niners’ hopes to turn a lost season into the top spot in the 2019 NFL Draft.

Mullens took an enormous, rare leap from unprotected prospect to average quarterback

No one, not even the 49ers, predicted his development from cutdown-day casualty to one of the league’s highest-value backups. And that’s sort of the story of the second-year quarterback’s football life so far. San Francisco has been Mullens’ home as a pro since 2017, but any team in the league could have swiped him away from the Bay Area at various points the past two years. No one did, and then he became the guy who put together one of the best quarterback debuts in history.

Mullens has been overlooked throughout his career. He was Alabama’s high school football player of the year in 2012, but couldn’t sniff an offer from Nick Saban in Tuscaloosa. The 6’0 pocket passer had only two scholarship offers from FBS programs, per 247Sports. He originally committed to Alabama-Birmingham, then flipped to Southern Miss.

That decision to join a program coming off an 0-12 season gave him the opportunity to start midway through head coach Todd Monken’s first year in Hattiesburg. His first start — a 12-of-31, three-interception performance against North Texas — didn’t exactly inspire confidence, but the Golden Eagles’ lack of better options gave him the opportunity to earn his spot in the lineup. This would be a trend that followed him into the NFL, but we’ll get to that later.

Mullens only earned a single win as a true freshman — coincidentally over UAB — but his two years as an upperclassman saw Southern Miss go 16-11 and win Conference USA’s West Division in 2015. He was the conference offensive player of the year that fall, throwing for 4,476 yards (320 per game), 38 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. While that was enough to briefly pop him up on scouts’ radars, a lackluster senior season left his name uncalled at the 2017 NFL Draft.

San Francisco quarterbacks coach Rich Scangarello carried the banner for Mullens in the post-draft process. That earned him a shot at the roster and an eventual spot on the practice squad, where a chunk of his time was spent playing scout team safety against the men he’d eventually be called on to replace — Garoppolo and Beathard. The 49ers would sign him again in January, this time to a futures contract that kept him under the franchise’s umbrella through the preseason.

The Niners’ 2018 depth chart, with 2017 third-round pick Beathard and the $137 million man Garoppolo already embossed into it, left little room for Mullens, so back to the practice squad he went. Any team in the NFL could have signed him to its active roster in the three-plus weeks that followed. Instead, he spent that time taking snaps and filling scout team roles until finally getting his first active roster call three days after Garoppolo was lost for the season with a torn ACL.

Five games later, Beathard would suffer a wrist injury that gave Mullens his long-awaited opportunity to shine.

What makes Mullens an effective NFL quarterback?

It’s very early to judge Mullens’ NFL career with any sort of accuracy, but he certainly hasn’t looked like an overmatched third-string passer thrown into the fire. His biggest asset has been his confidence in the pocket; the unlikely starter hasn’t been rattled by opposing defenses, instead calmly making his reads and finding open targets downfield.

He’s also avoided taking sacks behind an improving defensive line. While Garoppolo got sacked on 12.7 percent of his dropbacks and Beathard got sacked on 9.6 percent of his, Mullens has only hit the turf on 5.4 percent of his pass attempts this year. That’s a top 10 rate, and his ability to avoid negative plays has helped straighten out a steep learning curve.

Mullens has been eager to take whatever opposing defenses are willing to concede. Against an unprepared Raiders team, that came in the form of finding eight different players, including Ross Dwelley, Richie James, and Kendrick Bourne for positive yardage.

Against the Broncos in Week 13, it was route after route for tight end George Kittle. Kittle finished his first half against Denver with seven catches for an absurd 210 yards. He finished his game without a single reception in the second half as the Broncos adjusted to blanket him with double- and triple-teams, which left Mullens struggling to adjust. After starting his day completing 16 of 24 passes for 271 yards and a pair of touchdowns, he eased off the gas in an eventual 20-14 win. He followed that with a 4-of-9, 61-yard, one-interception performance against a resuscitated second-half Denver defense.

And there’s the rub with Mullens. He still makes plenty of mistakes that will give future opponents avenues to study his game tape and find a way to frustrate him. Mullens threw 46 interceptions in 44 college games; in the NFL, he’s thrown six in five starts.

The other thing holding him back is the flaw that’s been haunting him throughout his career — he’s not a physical specimen like some of the league’s top passers. He’s a below-average runner and doesn’t have a cannon arm. Asking him to make tough plays in traffic is always going to rely on his mastery of the position, and not any singular physical gift.

But one former NFL coach, who chose to stay anonymous on the matter, told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat’s Grant Cohn he believes improved mechanics will mitigate those flaws over time.

GRANT: “What do you notice about his physical skills?”
COACH: “He has pocket awareness. I’d like to see him load his back leg and cock his hips as he sets his feet and prepares to throw. But, that’s where a guy like Tom House can help. House is the former Atlanta Braves pitcher who runs a quarterback school in Los Angeles during the offseason. He works with Tom Brady and Drew Brees. They work on the finer points of pre-passing preparation.”
GRANT: “You’re saying Mullens needs more arm strength, but can develop it with better mechanics.”
COACH: “Correct. He doesn’t bring his lower body with him all the way. That’s something House can fix. And Mullens is the kind of guy who would seek out House. Mullens is a student of the game. He’s not out there playing like it’s recess. He’s not just winging it. He takes a much more studious approach. He’s invested in the intangibles beyond the normal scope of being a quarterback. That’s why he will surpass more physically gifted players.”

We’ll get a true understanding of what he’s capable of in Week 15, when he’ll face a repeat opponent for the first time in his NFL career. Mullens threw for 414 yards two weeks ago against the Seahawks, but 300 of those yards came in the second half — after Seattle had already opened up a commanding 20-3 lead. Pete Carroll’s team won’t be taken be surprise by a young, relatively unscouted passer Sunday. If Mullens can navigate the offense to a respectable showing in Santa Clara, it’ll go a long way to establishing his bonafides as an NFL passer — and establishing his value to the 49ers, either on the roster or as an important trade chip.

What’s Mullens going to cost the 49ers in 2021 (or someone else in 2020)?

Mullens is stuck in a hard spot as an undrafted free agent. He’s signed this year and the next for peanuts, and he’s an exclusive rights free agent in 2020. That gives the 49ers even more control than it would if he were a restricted free agent — he’ll only be allowed to negotiate with the Niners, and once they offer him a qualifying tender, his only options will be to either sign it or sit out the season.

Here’s how Over the Cap defines Mullens’ situation.

These are the players with 2 or less seasons in the league, a status reserved almost solely for undrafted rookie type players. Once tendered they can only negotiate with their former team. The tender offer is only a one year non-guaranteed contract at the minimum salary level so most teams would use the ERFA designation on players who were on the roster late in the prior year and signed to a 1 year deal. Usually these offers are signed as soon as they are made since nothing is gained by waiting.

This is great news for San Francisco. He’s getting paid $15,000 over the NFL’s minimum mandated salary for his first two seasons, doling out an unguaranteed, prorated chunk of the rookie minimum of $470,000 in 2018 and a prospective $570,000 next fall. His ERFA tender will likely be another six-figure number.

For that money, Mullens has given the team five games of top 20 quarterback play. That pegs his full season value at somewhere around $15 million for 2018. Even if he only makes one start per season over the next two years, his single-game value will be enough to make his near-minimum salary a bargain for the Niners.

[An aside: Ironically, his performance is actually hurting the Niners. Mullens could win enough games to negatively affect San Francisco’s draft slot next spring. Another win from their third-string quarterback could cost them the chance to bolster their defense with a franchise-changer like Nick Bosa.]

That’s important, because Garoppolo doesn’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to staying healthy. His four-game run as a starter for the Patriots thanks to Tom Brady’s Deflategate suspension was cut short after 1.5 games due to a shoulder injury. He failed to capitalize on the tremendous momentum of his 5-0 finish last December when his 2018 season ended after three weeks.

Mullens isn’t going to push Garoppolo and his $27.5 million average salary for starts when both are healthy. Still, he’s a promising option behind a vastly talented but unproven full-time quarterback whose maximum games in a season in a five-year career is six. Mullens’ hot start is likely unsustainable, but he has shown enough in a five-game trial to set his floor at “useful backup.”

In a season when quarterbacks like Garoppolo, Alex Smith, Carson Wentz, Andy Dalton, and Joe Flacco have all missed extended time, the value of a workable backup with the potential to be more is significant. It’s why the Saints traded to fit Teddy Bridgewater’s $5 million cap hit onto their books and part of the explanation behind the Eagles’ decision to hang on to Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles rather than trade away his $13.6 million cap figure.

That means Mullens or Beathard is likely headed to the trading block, though not before the team can gather more information on Garoppolo’s recovery. Mullens would be the more attractive option, given his salary for 2019 and the fact his ERFA status means he’ll be cheap again in 2020 and then a restricted free agent in 2021. That’s at least three seasons of inexpensive team control at quarterback, and it’s something for which the Niners could target a Day 2 pick in a deal with a passer-needy team, depending on how Mullens finishes his season.

His best shot at a real payday would come via a 2021 contract extension, but that would almost certainly come after a trade since it’s unlikely the Niners would want to devote $40 million or more of cap room to two quarterbacks. Otherwise, he’d have to wait until the spring of 2022 to hit free agency, which is, hoooo, a pretty damn long ways away.

For the sake of argument, let’s say some team ships the 49ers a 2020 third-round pick to acquire Mullens before the 2019 trade deadline. He plays well enough over 1.5 seasons with his new team for them to lock him into an extension as their foundational quarterback. Based on his limited play and assuming a $210 million salary cap, recent history suggests that a borderline top 20 passer like Mullens would get something like five years and $121.5 million, with a prove-it guarantee of $45 million in 2021.

That seems like a lot now, and could be entirely off base for an undrafted free agent with five career starts under his belt. But it could be an underpay in an era of ballooning paydays as the league’s salary cap continues to inflate.

Other rookie contract studs who upped their value in Week 13:

Dak Prescott, QB, Cowboys (455 passing yards, 3 TDs, 2 INTs in a win over the Eagles)

Derrick Henry, RB, Titans (238 rushing yards, 4 TDs in a win over the Jaguars)

Amari Cooper, WR, Cowboys (217 receiving yards, 3 TDs in a win over the Eagles)

George Kittle, TE, 49ers (210 receiving yards, 1 TD in a win over the Broncos)

Myles Jack, LB, Jaguars (13 tackles, 1 sack in a loss to the Titans)

Trey Flowers, DE, Patriots (2 sacks, 1 forced fumble in a loss to the Dolphins)