Tyrann Mathieu: 49ers Were Wise To Replace Kaepernick With Gabbert

After the Cardinals had four interceptions in a 47-7 win against the 49ers in September, Arizona safety Tyrann Mathieu had a blunt assessment of San Francisco’s aerial attack. Mathieu and Justin Bethel each had interception returns for touchdowns in the game’s first six minutes. Mathieu finished with two interceptions, and he suggested it wouldn’t be as easy to pick off Blaine Gabbert, who has started the 49ers’ past two games. At the start of the conference call, Mathieu said he didn’t want to “take anything away from Kaepernick,” but he did so by comparing Gabbert favorably to the 49ers’ ex-starter. Does the 49ers offense look different now that Blaine Gabbert is the quarterback? I think he’s underrated when you talk about how well he can throw the football. [...] he had some (22) yards last week against the Seahawks running the ball. If he gets in a situation where he feels pressure, he’s not just going to give the defense an opportunity to make a play. Probably better than we expected, defensively, with those two interceptions for touchdowns. Getting the wide receivers involved. Do you back into Gabbert’s history this week, beyond his two starts with the 49ers? [...] you just want to look at the whole picture and see if they’re going to sprinkle a little of what they try to do with Kaepernick and put it on Gabbert’s shoulders. It seems like he can get to the line, see a coverage and then go to a different play. Or see a coverage and not throw the ball. Do you know where the Super Bowl is being played? TM: (Laughs) San Fran, right? It’s a tough place to play, like I said, the history of the team. Special teams, defensively, offensively, they’re not giving up. [...] it’s going to be a tough place to play, especially with our division history. Games that we’re not going to overlook. Like I said, we finish up with some great teams, got the Vikings and Green Bay and Philly and Seattle, so it’s a tough stretch for us, a very important stretch for us. If we could just keep our same philosophy and same thought process, just take it one game at a time, just keep making the plays we’ve been making all year, I think we’ll be alright. For the last few years, this has been the Seahawks and 49ers division, how important was it for you guys to make a statement against those two teams? We like to look at ourselves as the SEC of the NFL. If we want to talk about Super Bowl and talk about playoffs, we knew that we were going to have to play the 49ers and Seahawks twice a year. [...] we just try to go in and play our style of football, fit in with those guys and hopefully have some success, have the type of success those teams have had over the last couple years.