Brock Purdy’s Lead In San Francisco 49ers’ Quarterback Competition Is No Surprise

The San Francisco 49ers are used to misfortune when it comes to quarterback injuries. Bad luck at the game’s most important position has hit them continually and, as was the case in last season’s NFC Championship Game, at the worst possible time.

It was therefore on Monday hard not to respond to general manager John Lynch’s comments that the Niners are hopeful Brock Purdy will be “ready to go” for training camp following surgery on the torn elbow ligament he suffered in the title game loss to the Philadelphia Eagles without a degree of skepticism.

That hope is in part tied to the strength of feeling the Niners have for Purdy, who as of right now is the quarterback they clearly believe is the best candidate to be the starter in 2023.

Lynch made that much clear when he declared Purdy “the leader in the clubhouse” in the quarterback competition with Trey Lance.

“I think Brock has earned the right with the way he played,” Lynch said at the NFL Annual Meeting, per Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area.

“He’s probably the leader in the clubhouse. I’ll let Kyle [Shanahan] make those kinds of decisions. But I know when we talk, I think Brock has probably earned that right to be the guy. If we were to line up, he’d probably take that first snap.”

It is in some senses an eye-opening declaration from Lynch considering Lance, the 49ers’ third overall pick of the 2021 NFL Draft, will likely be the quarterback taking first-team reps at OTAs and minicamp having suffered his season-ending ankle injury way back in Week 2 of last season.

Yet his remarks should not come as much of a surprise given the high standard of play Purdy produced after being thrown into the mix when Jimmy Garoppolo became the second 49ers quarterback to go down with a season-ending injury in Week 13.

Leading the 49ers to five straight wins, in addition to the Week 13 win over the Miami Dolphins in relief of Garoppolo, and two playoff triumphs, Purdy — the last pick in the 2022 draft — displayed the poise and, more importantly, the decisiveness that Kyle Shanahan’s offense commands.

On top of that, Purdy flashed the ability to produce the second-reaction, improvisational plays that had been lacking with Garoppolo under center. Purdy’s mobility is not that of a true dual-threat quarterback, but it is enough to make him sporadically dangerous as a runner and enabled him to consistently extend plays last year.

Purdy also demonstrated to overcome adversity across his seven starts. He recovered from poor first-half performances against the Washington Commanders in Week 16 and in the Wild Card round win over the Seattle Seahawks and led the 49ers from behind in Week 17 versus the Las Vegas Raiders, coming through in the clutch in an unexpectedly close shootout.

Lance has the edge in terms of his athleticism and his arm strength and has the advantage of making a more immediate return to the field than Purdy.

Yet from his decisiveness to his playmaking ability and his success in finding a way to deliver victories in games where he and the Niners were not at their best, Purdy checked so many of the necessary boxes in high-pressure situations for a contending team.

Across the final five weeks of the season, the 49ers averaged 33.6 points per game — the most in the NFL — with Purdy second in Expected Points Added per play, according to rbsdm.com, in that span.

Nothing Lance does in practice can compare to the prowess Purdy displayed down the stretch in 2022. Purdy deserves to be the leader in the clubhouse and the reality is it will likely require the timeline Lynch laid out to be incorrect or a remarkable turnaround for Lance to start in Week 1 of 2023.