Shaun Hill was out of the NFL and getting no real interest from teams so he and his agent began formulating Plan B, which is code for life after football.

Hill had spent four seasons as the Vikings’ No. 3 quarterback, and all he had to show for it were two kneel-downs at the end of a game in 2005. An unrestricted free agent after that season, he went months without any suitable offers.
“There was some doubt that crept in,” he said. “It’s tough for guy going into his fifth season that has absolutely zero film to find a job.”
So he sat and plotted his next career move. Asked for his Plan B, Hill joked, “We didn’t come up with a good one.”
“I was definitely going to just stay in shape,” he said. “At least give it a year. Hopefully somebody would bring me in later in the year if injuries happened and things like that. But I was going to stay ready to go for at least a year and then kind of revisit that Plan B.”
Fortunately for Hill, it never came to that. He signed with the San Francisco 49ers in June 2006 and turned his opportunity into far more than anyone could have imagined.
He spent one season as the No. 3 quarterback, became the starter midway through last season and won the job outright in a competition with former No. 1 overall draft pick Alex Smith in training camp this summer.
As unlikely as it would have seemed when he carried a clipboard for the Vikings, Hill has steered the 49ers to a 2-0 start entering Sunday’s game against his former team.
“I did have a new appreciation (for football) when I signed out here,” he said Wednesday during a conference call. “I knew that this was an opportunity that I didn’t want to let pass.”
Hill has been more efficient than spectacular, resulting in the dreaded “game manager” label. He has completed 64.9 percent of his passes for 353 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions. He has an 87.8 quarterback rating.
Hill won’t scare teams with his arm strength, but it’s hard to quibble with the results: He is 9-3 as a starter.
“It doesn’t matter to me really what people call me just as long as we’re winning games,” he said. “You mention a guy who makes plays whenever he needs to or gets first downs or doesn’t turn the ball over. I don’t know what else there is to play quarterback.”
Hill said he went to Maryland as a “spring ball arm” and was an undrafted rookie with the Vikings. Even then, people half-joked that he stuck around so long only because former Vikings coach Mike Tice was also a Maryland graduate.
“I’m sure it didn’t hurt, but I don’t think they would have kept me around there if that was the only reason,” Hill said.
San Francisco coach Mike Singletary saw something in Hill, who replaced J.T. O’Sullivan as the starter in the middle of last season. Hill responded by going 5-3 while completing 62.8 percent of his passes for 2,046 yards and 13 touchdowns with eight interceptions.
“Any time that you’re able to win football games, it’s going to give you confidence,” Singletary said. “You feel like, ’Hey I can do this.”’
And that is better than Plan B.