National Football League

San Francisco 49ers made this trade up to draft Justin Fields

Updated Jul. 20, 2021 8:52 p.m. ET

By RJ Young
FOX Sports College Football Writer

By the morning of May 1, the NFC West could feature the most entertaining four quarterbacks that we’ve seen in a single division in years.

Kyler Murray in Arizona, Matt Stafford in Los Angeles, Russ Wilson in Seattle and Justin Fields in San Francisco: This is made-for-TV drama, and it's about to happen.

Jacksonville is so locked in to drafting Trevor Lawrence at No. 1 that Jaguars coach Urban Meyer didn’t even attend BYU quarterback Zach Wilson’s pro day.

Meanwhile, the New York Jets seem to be out of the Sam Darnold business and preparing to hand their franchise to the best QB prospect to come out of Provo since Taysom Hill.

"Jets are gonna take Wilson at 2," an NFL front office member told me. "Draw your own conclusions about 3."

Fine, I will: Justin Fields is about to become a San Francisco 49er.

GM John Lynch and coach Kyle Shanahan all but declared this with the move the Niners made Friday.

San Francisco gave up two future first-round picks and a 2021 third-rounder to move up nine spots to No. 3 in the upcoming NFL Draft. You don’t make that kind of move, mortgaging your future, unless you believe you have a chance to draft the most important player to your franchise over the next decade.

The Niners also outlined for us what most NFL front office members and draft analysts have believed since January: There are three franchise quarterbacks in this draft class, and they’re all household names.

Lawrence. Fields. Wilson.

If the Jets decided to run a double move and draft Fields instead of Wilson, you can be just as certain that the Niners will draft Wilson.

Somehow, though, NFL Twitter has talked itself into the 49ers taking North Dakota State's Trey Lance or Alabama's Mac Jones, while Fields is said to be all over the board.

Hall of Fame scout Gil Brandt tweeted that he has heard from one NFL club that his team has a fourth-round grade on Fields.

Even if that’s the worst backhanded "He’s A Russell Wilson Type" compliment in history, the thought that Fields grades out as a fourth-rounder is preposterous.

Moving up to draft Lance, though? Why not just move up to draft Jones then? Because you wouldn’t.

Jones finished his last season in college with an undefeated record and a national title — like Lance. Jones set the single-season NCAA passer efficiency rating record, threw 41 TD passes with just four interceptions and finished third in 2020 Heisman balloting.

We can play the numbers and awards game until the Detroit Lions finally win a Super Bowl, or we can watch the tape.

What does the tape show?

Lance is mobile. He didn’t play with a bunch of studs, but how many studs are there in the FCS?

Jones is about as mobile as an angry snail, and he did play with a bunch of studs — arguably the most talented class in college football history. He also played an all-conference schedule in the toughest league in the sport.

Still, so many people want to believe that you don’t need a mobile quarterback in the NFL because Tom Brady just won his seventh Super Bowl ring.

While that’s not inaccurate, only two quarterbacks have won NFL MVP by unanimous vote. One is Brady. The other is Lamar Jackson — the most mobile quarterback this side of Michael Vick.

That, quite frankly, is a trait Shanahan did not have the chance to play with as an offensive coordinator in Atlanta or during his four seasons as head coach in San Francisco.

He knows an immobile quarterback can’t turn a bad playcall or broken play into a positive gain or touchdown. He also knows an immobile quarterback was what he had in losing in both of his Super Bowl appearances.

The mystique around Niners quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was strong in New England. It lost some of its shine after his move to San Francisco, even as the Niners made a run to the Super Bowl in 2019.

But it was totally lost when 100 million people saw Garoppolo throwing the football with his eyes closed in the biggest game of the year. Add to this the injury he’s coming off of, and you can see how enticing the prospect of a 6-foot-3, 230-pound Fields can be.

It’s not just that Fields and Ohio State began their season in November and still managed to play in the national title game in January. It’s also that Fields has shown, over and over again, that he is accurate with the ball, his teammates want to follow him, and he can play through pain.

Fields is the best athlete available at quarterback, and he’s likely to show that again next week at Ohio State’s pro day. In video shared to his social accounts, Fields ran 4.41 seconds in the 40-yard dash and claimed he’s going to get under 4.4 by his pro day.

If he does, he’ll be one of the four fastest QBs on record — ever — and the fastest since Jackson. But that’s also what the conversation around Fields has missed.

Lawrence, Wilson, Lance and Jones have each gone through their respective pro days, and the response has been predictably reactionary. Confirmation bias is in its full glory.

When Fields shows out at his pro day, expect to hear about his moving up Your Team’s draft board ... and nod along.

Justin Fields has everything you’d want in an NFL quarterback. The Niners know that. Why don’t you?

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young. Subscribe to "The RJ Young Show" on YouTube. He is not on a StepMill.