Brother, can you spare a Wentz? (asking for the 49ers)

The NFL is a quarterback-driven league. If you have a good one, you have a chance to win.

If you don't, you should be spending every waking moment trying to get one.

The Eagles, of course, have a good one. Maybe even a great one, though it is way too soon to ring that bell, even if Carson Wentz has been playing like a roasted blend of Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Ben Roethlisberger during the Birds' 6-1 start.

The Eagles' opponent Sunday at the Linc, the winless San Francisco 49ers, still are in search of their Carson Wentz. They are in the very early stages of trying to determine whether it could be their current starting quarterback, rookie C.J. Beathard.

Beathard, a late-third-round pick in the April draft, made his first NFL start last week against the Dallas Cowboys. It could have gone better. He completed just 22 of 38 passes for 235 yards and no touchdowns and was sacked five times in a 40-10 loss.

Then again, Peyton Manning was 21-for-37 with three interceptions and four sacks in his first NFL start. And he ended up having a fair-to-middling career. So, who knows?

Most teams viewed Beathard as career-backup material coming out of the University of Iowa. He's a smart, tough kid — his grandfather is former Redskins and Chargers general manager Bobby Beathard — but his 40-19 career touchdowns-to-interceptions differential didn't knock anybody's socks off. Neither did his 58.1 career completion percentage.

But Shanahan liked him enough to persuade his new boss, Niners first-year GM John Lynch, to take him with the 104th overall pick.

"I thought he had the ability to make all the throws,'' Shanahan said. "That's the first thing you want to see [in a quarterback], and I felt he had that.

"And then, just watching him throughout his college career, I always like to watch where guys go with the football. The timing of where they go with the football. How they keep their eyes downfield and don't watch the rush.

"C.J. didn't always have the best teams when he was at Iowa. But I thought he was a big part of why they won. He would hang in there, even when they didn't block for him very well. Even when guys weren't open.

"He'd keep his eyes down the field. He was extremely tough. He was comparable to Carson in that type of way. He doesn't have the mobility that Carson has. But he can make some plays with his legs here and there.''

Beathard's toughness figures to get another major test Sunday against the Eagles' pass rush. The Eagles sacked one of Shanahan's former pupils, Kirk Cousins, four times in their 34-24 win over the Redskins on Monday night.

Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz isn't a big blitzer. He has blitzed on 22.8 percent of opponent pass plays this season.

But the scent of a rookie quarterback making just his second pro start might be too powerful for Schwartz to ignore Sunday.

"You never know,'' Shanahan said. "Some people look at it and say, 'Hey, it's a rookie quarterback. Blitz the heck out of him and see if he'll panic.'

"Others will say, 'Let's play real conservative and soft. He's a rookie quarterback. He'll eventually mess it up. Just let him do it instead of giving him some cheap freebies. We have to be ready for both.''

Shanahan isn't married to Beathard as the Niners' quarterback of the future. Regardless of how the rest of the season turns out for both the team and the rookie, they almost certainly will keep their 2018 options open.

The Niners are projected to have the most salary-cap space in the league next year, somewhere in the neighborhood of $118 million. If someone such as, say, Cousins, were to make it to the free-agent market, they easily would have the financial wherewithal to sign him.

They also have nine picks in the 2018 draft, including multiple selections in the second and third rounds. And if they continue to lose, they also will be in excellent position to select one of the top quarterbacks in the draft.

"I'm not sold on anything long-term,'' Shanahan said when asked if he felt Beathard could be their long-term quarterback answer, their Wentz.

"That's the importance of this year for us. That's one of the reasons I wanted to come here. I knew we had some hard work [ahead of us]. Things haven't gone exactly as I'd hoped, so far. But I still feel very good about the future of this organization and where we're at.''

The Niners will bring an 0-7 record into the Linc. As 0-7 records go, it's streaked with a few strands of hope. Five of their seven losses have been by three points or fewer.

But there also was a 20-point loss to Carolina and that ugly 30-point loss to the Cowboys last week, and well, 0-7 is 0-7, no matter how you slice it.

"I think this is a necessity to get where we want to be,'' Shanahan said. "It's going to tell us a lot about these guys. It's going to help us figure out who's going to be a part of turning this around for us.

"No one enjoys going 0-7. But it also gives me a chance to not let people [kid] me. You really get to see people's true colors when you go through some stuff like we are right now.''