Brock Purdy will be the San Francisco 49ers' Week 1 starter. His days of emulating opposing quarterbacks on the scout team may be over. That job will now fall on either Sam Darnold or Trey Lance, and it may have nothing to do with which quarterback earns the QB2 job.
It will have to do with the 49ers' opponent each week.
"This is NFL, so you think about how to get your team ready to win that week," head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters before Tuesday's practice. "And most of that has to do with who's best for our defense, who gets them the right look, and prepares our team the best way for what they're about to face on Sunday. And after that, you try to get everyone reps because you only get better with reps."
When pressed on the topic, Shanahan confirmed that the scout team quarterback could change from week to week.
Saying that the scout team quarterback might change weekly might indicate that the team intends to keep three quarterbacks on the 53-man roster. It's uncommon, but Shanahan and the 49ers have done it before.
"You keep three when you have three," Shanahan said. "And [for] everyone in the NFL, it's hard with the 53-man roster, so you like to keep two so you can get another position somewhere. The new rule, I don't think is going to change any[thing]. That's just a bonus. It's not like you get an extra 54th. It still takes away from that. You just get an extra one up on game day.
"But for what happened to us the one time out of 10,000 games or whatever it is, I don't think people are going to change their rosters because of that. But if you do have a third one that you don't want to lose because it's hard to have quarterbacks, it's hard to keep them on practice squad, too, then that's what you got to do."
The competition for Purdy's backup continues. The 49ers coach doesn't plan to announce the winner until he needs to. That will be sometime before the team opens its regular season on the road against the Steelers.
"I'll probably announce it before we play Pittsburgh, but not this game," Shanahan said.
The coach hasn't decided the order in which he will play his quarterbacks in Friday's preseason finale against the Los Angeles Chargers.
"Today's a big part of that, and tomorrow," Shanahan said. "But we'll decide after these two practices."
Lance was the Week 1 starter last season. However, the former No. 3 overall pick suffered a season-ending ankle injury during the team's second game. Jimmy Garoppolo, now with the Las Vegas Raiders, suffered a broken foot in early December, opening the door for Purdy.
In March, San Francisco signed Darnold to a one-year deal.