The San Francisco 49ers have had a mixture of good talent and bad fortune lately at the quarterback position.
Their first and second-string quarterbacks, Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo, went down at different points of the regular season, forcing rookie Brock Purdy to become the starter.
Just when it seemed like Purdy would be the team’s franchise signal-caller of the future, he suffered a torn UCL in his elbow early in Sunday’s NFC Championship Game against the Philadelphia Eagles, leaving the 49ers with lots of uncertainty under center.
Moving forward, there is no easy answer as far as who will start there next season, and NFL Live broke down exactly why.
Who should be QB1 of the future for the 49ers? 🤔
“There’s so much uncertainty with both of these QBs.” —@minakimes pic.twitter.com/WZ95VW3WsC
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) February 2, 2023
Purdy played very well during his time at QB, and he showed the type of poise and confidence that rookie signal-callers rarely have.
He also displayed a couple of skills that Garoppolo doesn’t possess — the ability to move out of the pocket or evade defenders while still finding his receivers, as well as the ability to connect on intermediate to long passes downfield.
According to some metrics, Purdy has even outperformed some household names ever since taking over for Garoppolo.
Jimmy G was arguably having the best season of his career and Brock Purdy has out performed him in traditional box score stats, EPA, and CPOE as a rookie
Purdy is 23 years old, makes $900k/year, and should continue to develop into a better passer. 49ers struck gold with this one pic.twitter.com/coJTGZb3ZM
— Regression to the Mean (@RTMFantasy) January 24, 2023
Brock Purdy has not thrown an interception on 59 attempts this postseason.
It’s by far the most attempts by a rookie in NFL postseason history without throwing an interception. pic.twitter.com/eEXQmGKEaz
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) January 25, 2023
However, he will have to have surgery for his torn UCL, and depending on the type of surgery he needs, he could be out for anywhere from six months to over a full calendar year.
Lance may someday become a good QB, but he has played little competitive football to this point, as he lost a full season of college football due to the COVID-19 pandemic and has appeared in just eight games in two NFL seasons.
As for Garoppolo, head coach Kyle Shanahan said this week he doesn’t see the veteran returning to San Francisco for another season.
The 49ers are chock-full of talent overall, but at the most important position in any team sport, it is very unclear what will happen when the 2023 season gets underway.
