San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan sat down with NFL Network's Steve Mariucci and Colleen Wolfe on Monday, ahead of the team's 10th training camp practice. Trey Lance was the undisputed starter a year ago, replacing Jimmy Garoppolo. Garoppolo was still around, waiting to be traded. That never happened. Instead, he returned on a one-year deal to back up Lance.
Then Garoppolo got another chance, replacing Lance after the young quarterback suffered a season-ending ankle injury during Week 2. An injury to Garoppolo in Week 13 opened the door for another young quarterback, rookie Brock Purdy.
Now, Purdy is the starting quarterback, and Lance is competing with Sam Darnold for the QB2 job.
Mariucci asked Shanahan to reflect on the transition from Garoppolo to Lance to Purdy. Here is what the coach had to say on the topic.
"You know, when we drafted Trey, we knew we were going to give him the keys eventually," Shanahan said. "And I remember the first time I talked to Jimmy, telling him, whatever rookie we drafted, whoever it was, if you come in on your stuff, it's going to be hard for any of these guys to beat you out. And that was the case the first year, and we wanted it to be that way. We wanted Jimmy to play and to ease Trey in. And that is really what happened.
"And we got to the NFC Championship Game, came up short, but we knew where we were going the next year, and we gave that to Trey. And he was having a hell of a camp, getting ready to go. And we were also really impressed with our seventh-round draft choice, Brock, who was getting third-team reps at the time. But the more we watched him, we realized this guy's going to play good in the preseason. We don't want to risk putting him on the practice squad.
"Are we okay with having a rookie starter, basically in Trey (because of his inexperience), and a rookie backup as number two with Brock? And that made us a little nervous because neither of them had gone out there and done it. And we're watching Jimmy every day, throw, and we all know the player Jimmy is. And once we started to realize the trade market wasn't there, we thought that it made sense. Me, just personally, I was like, 'Man, this would be a good situation for Jimmy. I know we'd love to have him come back up Trey in case something happened, not putting all that pressure on Brock.'
"And then when I kind of sat with Jimmy and talked what was best for him, what was best for us. We both came to the conclusion that it would be great for him to come here and be the backup. Then, first quarter of the second game, he was back to being our starter, and I was like, 'Wow, I'm glad that we got him,' because, man, I didn't want to have to put Brock in that situation for an entire year, and the pressure. But Jimmy, him coming in, playing well, I think he played about six games, and then he got hurt, and then Brock came in. And I just remember our owner saying, 'Well, you said how good this guy was.' And I was like, 'Yeah, but that's practice. This is real, so don't hold me to it yet.'
"And he came in and looked the same way in games that he did in practice, and we had seven games with him, and he played at as high of a level as I believe you could play. And it's kind of what made it easy going into this year."
Purdy is coming off offseason surgery to repair the torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his right elbow, an injury suffered in the NFC Championship Game. Mariucci asked the head coach if he was confident Purdy would be ready for Week 1.
"He's ready now," Shanahan responded.
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