Mac Jones Is the Sneaky Trade Candidate Nobody Is Talking About: 49ers May Listen by November
The San Francisco 49ers have publicly said they value Mac Jones and have no plans to trade him. Several NFL executives think that public stance has a shelf life of about six weeks.
Jones, the former Patriots first-round pick who rebuilt his career as Brock Purdy’s backup last year, is heading into the final year of his contract. He is due $3.15 million in 2026. The 49ers told anyone who asked this spring that he is staying. That story will change if Purdy stays healthy.
The math is simple. If Purdy starts every game, Jones plays zero meaningful snaps. He becomes a $3 million backup quarterback on a team that has multiple other needs to address. By the trade deadline, the 49ers will have a real decision to make. Keep Jones as insurance, or trade him to a team that needs a quarterback and use the picks to fix the defense.
The market for a 27-year-old quarterback with 14 NFL starts and a year of starting experience is real. Multiple teams will be looking for veteran QB help by midseason. Injuries happen. Young quarterbacks struggle. Backup quarterbacks who can actually win games are scarcer than the league lets on.
The teams most likely to be in the market are familiar names. The Browns are about to find out what they have in their post-Deshaun Watson plan. The Raiders have not solved their quarterback problem. The Dolphins are one Tua concussion away from disaster. The Saints have a young quarterback who is going to be tested. Any of those teams could end up needing Jones by Week 8.
The 49ers are familiar with the in-season trade dance. They made one of the biggest in-season trades in modern NFL history when they got Christian McCaffrey from the Panthers in 2022. They have the front-office muscle to pull off a similar deal again. John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan are not sentimental about backup quarterbacks.
The trade compensation would be modest. A late-round pick in 2027, possibly with a conditional element that bumps it up if Jones starts a certain number of games. Maybe a fourth and a swap of late-round picks. Nothing earth-shattering. But for the 49ers, who are always one defensive injury away from a rotation crisis, even a fourth-round pick has value.
The 49ers also have insurance on the roster. Brandon Allen has been around the league for years and is a perfectly fine third-string option. Joshua Dobbs is also on the roster. Neither is Jones, but both have shown they can stand in for a few weeks if needed. The Niners are not depending on Jones the way some teams depend on their primary backup.
For Jones, a trade would be the best possible outcome. He spent two miserable years in New England getting blamed for everything that went wrong in the Bill Belichick era. He spent a year in Jacksonville not playing much. He landed in San Francisco and got a chance to rehab his career. He played well in relief duty last year. The next step is starting again somewhere.
The 49ers’ public stance is the right one. You do not announce in May that your backup quarterback is on the trade block. You play it cool. You let the market come to you. Then, when the right offer comes in October, you take it.
The smart bet is that Mac Jones is wearing a different uniform by the trade deadline. The 49ers say they are not trading him. They said the same thing about Trey Lance. Things change in November.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
