49ers’ Blaine Gabbert has audition for full-time job

Remember how Shakespeare’s Hamlet gave that graveyard speech to the skull of Yorick, the former court jester?

In a similar fashion, 49ers quarterback Blaine Gabbert is conversing with the football, which helps him come to terms with his receivers.

[...] said McLeod Bethel-Thompson, the 49ers’ recently re-acquired backup quarterback.

Both Hamlet and Gabbert use unconventional conversation as a tool to a better life.

Sunday in Chicago against the Bears, Gabbert will make his fourth start in relief of Colin Kaepernick.

Gabbert failed miserably in his first go-round as a starting NFL quarterback, at Jacksonville in 2011 through ’13 (5-22 record, 22 touchdowns, 24 interceptions), but has been a pleasant surprise with the 49ers, a shock to some.

[...] let’s bring in Bethel-Thompson — a San Francisco native and graduate of Balboa High — for some perspective.

“If you want to get into real quarterback terms,” Bethel-Thompson said, a quarterback gets into a feel and a conversation with the football, where there’s no thinking as to how you’re going to throw the ball, you just decide where the ball’s going to hit the receiver and you make it happen.

[...] as soon as you get out of that realm, as soon as you get into an offense long enough to where you’re comfortable and you don’t have to think about what’s going on out there, you know where everyone’s going to be, and you can play free and fast, the level of speed you’re going to play with and the level of execution is going to skyrocket.

“Skyrocket” might not be the best description of Gabbert’s rise to respectability, unless you take into account his humble NFL beginning.

If Gabbert was a rookie right now, without all that ugly NFL baggage, experts would be saying, “Hey, this guy could be pretty good!”

There are very, very few people that understand quarterback play and can evaluate quarterback play, and there are a lot of people that think they can understand and evaluate quarterback play.

Bethel-Thompson said it’s glaringly apparent to him when a quarterback is not having a good conversation with the ball.