Brock Purdy or Trey Lance? It looked like the latter might be the San Francisco 49ers' answer at quarterback heading into this past season. Then, a Week 2 season-ending ankle injury changed everything. That led to Jimmy Garoppolo starting until the veteran suffered his own injury during Week 13.
Enter rookie Brock Purdy, who won each of his seven starts before suffering a tear of the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his right elbow during the first quarter of the NFC Championship Game. If not for the injury, Purdy would have likely been the frontrunner to start during the 2023 season. Now, the quarterback situation is a bit murky.
Purdy will miss six months after undergoing surgery on February 22, allowing Lance a chance to prove himself worthy of the starting job this offseason. One former 49er, Vernon Davis, believes Lance might do just that.
"To me, Trey Lance is the answer," Davis recently told Fanatic View's Pop DiBiase (h/t Angelina Martin of NBC Sports Bay Area). "You have Brock Purdy, who came in and made some wonderful plays for them, but is he the answer? I don't quite think so. I think you have two quarterbacks there. Now, when times get rough, and someone goes down, [you can] add the next man."
San Francisco made Lance the No. 3 overall pick in 2021, trading a haul of draft capital to acquire the young quarterback. The team added Purdy with the last overall pick, No. 262, last year.
Lance, recovering from two surgeries, expects to be full-go for organized team activities (OTAs) in May.
"But it's going to be a process," Lance said last week of his recovery. "Ups and downs, and it has been, obviously, with the second procedure and everything like that. But I feel like I'm in a really great spot, and OTAs, I should be fully cleared."