San Francisco 49ers News & Rumors

The 49ers view Brock Purdy as their optimal starter — when he’s healthy. As it will be a while before that is the case, the team has a backup plan. That might end up needing to carry over into the regular season.

Hopes Purdy can return in time for training camp may not be realistic. After John Lynch presented a more optimistic Purdy outlook, Kyle Shanahan brought up the initial timetable — a six-month rehab period — and added that the breakthrough passer may not be fully ready to go until October.

“I think it can go anywhere from six months to eight months, so it’s all open like that,” Shanahan said, via 49ersWebZone.com’s David Bonilla. I think we’ll have a better idea … they say at three months out of surgery, they have a better idea whether it’s going to be six months or eight months. So I don’t know.

“It might be Week 1. I think I’m hearing, at the latest, Week 4. But that’s just all estimations, and we’ll see what happens.”

It is premature to suggest Purdy will not be ready in time to start the season, but this is the first time a 49ers official has said last year’s Mr. Irrelevant might not be ready to play until potentially October. That leaves the door open for Trey Lance, but while the third-year passer is expected to be ready for OTAs, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com notes (video link) Lance’s career arc points to Sam Darnold being the likely 49ers Week 1 starter.

A scenario in which Darnold opens the season as San Francisco’s starter would both represent another setback for Lance and open the door to more questions regarding this job, given Darnold’s draft pedigree (No. 3 overall in 2018) and experience advantage on Purdy. If Darnold is taking the snaps for the 49ers to start the season, will Lance be on the roster?

Both Shanahan and 49ers CEO Jed York defended the Lance maneuver — a trade-up that cost the 49ers their 2022 and ’23 first-rounders — this week, and the seventh-year HC said he wants to have Lance, Purdy and Darnold on the 53-man roster. The 49ers ran into historic injury trouble at quarterback last season, with Lance’s fractured ankle — which required two surgeries — starting that run of setbacks. As a result, Shanahan expects Lance to have a more difficult road to win this year’s starting job — after the team essentially handed it to him in 2022.

“I think it’s going to be harder for him, too,” Shanahan said of Lance moving back to first-string duty after missing 15 games last season. “I mean, Brock played in eight games, and Trey had that job going into last season. And if he would have played eight games like that, no one else would have been able to come in and beat him out. But with Brock being hurt, it does open [things] up, and it does give him a chance.”

Quarterback injury issues overshadowed four of the past five 49ers seasons, and Jimmy Garoppolo trade rumors hovered over the 2022 offseason. But the next several months present ingredients, especially with Darnold now in the mix, for the Shanahan-era Niners’ most complicated stretch at the position.

Before Brock Purdy‘s elbow injury, he was ticketed to be the 49ers’ clear-cut starter heading into the offseason program. Purdy’s UCL tear injected some uncertainty into this situation, but John Lynch still views last year’s Mr. Irrelevant as being ahead of the two former top-five picks on San Francisco’s roster.

Purdy’s stretch-run showing earned him the right to be the frontrunner for the 2023 starting job, Lynch said at the league meetings. The team has its 2022 Week 1 starter, Trey Lance, coming off ankle surgery and just signed Sam Darnold. But if all three are healthy at training camp, it will be Purdy opening with the 1s.

“I think Brock has earned the right with the way he played that he’s probably the leader in the clubhouse at that,” Lynch said, via the San Francisco Chronicle’s Eric Branch. “I’ll let Kyle [Shanahan] make those kinds of decisions. But I know when we talk, Brock has probably earned that right to be the guy. If we were to line up, he’d probably take that first snap.”

Lance and Darnold will be healthy going into OTAs, though the former is coming off two surgeries to repair a fractured ankle. Purdy may not receive full clearance until September, which helped lead Darnold to San Francisco. Purdy, however, avoided Tommy John surgery and is expected to be ready to throw in early June, Branch adds. The second-year QB will undoubtedly be sidelined for San Francisco’s offseason program, but Lynch said the hope is he will be ready to go by training camp. That might be on the ambitious side, and if Purdy does return by the start of camp, all eyes will be on his form.

Lynch was careful to mention Lance is not out of the competition. The former No. 3 overall pick is slated to count $9.3MM against the 49ers’ cap this season. He has made four career starts and has finished just three games, submitting uneven work. The one-year North Dakota State starter may come up in trade rumors this offseason, with Darnold’s presence not guaranteeing Lance the 49ers’ backup job. How this offseason program unfolds may help determine Lance’s future.

“We like Trey on our team right now,” Lynch said when asked about Lance trade possibilities. “We always joke, Kyle and I, that we’d trade each other if someone would give us a good enough deal. So we listen to anything, but we like Trey on our team. We’re very excited about the way he’s progressing, about his opportunity. I think he’s chomping at the bit to get out there, get back under center and be healthy again.”

The 49ers, who sent the Dolphins two future first-round picks to move up to No. 3 for Lance in 2021, would be hit with just more than $5MM in dead money if they traded the third-year passer after June 1. They would obviously not receive close to the value they paid to draft the dual-threat talent; a sell-low trade here would close the book on a massive organizational draft blunder. But the team is still moving forward with its Purdy-Lance setup, with Darnold now in the mix as a much cheaper option compared to Jimmy Garoppolo.