Brock Purdy returned sooner than expected. The San Francisco 49ers cleared him at the start of training camp, not even five months after the second-year quarterback underwent surgery to repair the torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his right elbow.
Purdy has had his ups and downs in practices. That was expected, considering the severity of the injury from which he is returning. One 49ers teammate was asked what he's seen from Purdy through the first couple of weeks of training camp.
"Honestly, it feels like nothing's changed, which is a great thing," center Jake Brendel told reporters after Saturday's practice. "He ended his season last year, obviously with injury, but still on the top of his game. I feel like he's been nothing but getting better each week. You really can see that this [off]season as well."
Purdy is the frontrunner to start Week 1, assuming no setbacks in his recovery. Two former No. 3 overall picks, Trey Lance and Sam Darnold, are competing for the QB2 job. QB1 is just taking it one day at a time, though, not looking too far ahead and certainly not fixating on what it will be like to take a big in-game hit again.
"I feel normal when I'm out there, so I feel like I've just got to get into a rhythm, and play, and go through progressions, and just play quarterback," Purdy said this week. "It's not really, 'Hey, I have to get tackled here just so I feel good about my arm.' There's nothing like that that goes through my mind.
"So I just play football, I go through my reads, and I feel normal. It's not like I'm out there timid or scared about a certain hit or anything like that."
Purdy acknowledges that he isn't perfect yet. However, Brendel believes his quarterback is capable of identifying and correcting his flaws.
Brendel said, "I feel like, just every single day, he might screw up one play or two plays in practice, but the next practice, you deliberately see him fix that problem, and that's really all you want from a second-year quarterback."
