Originally posted by SmokeyJoe:
You have to look at the team's actions, not their public statements. You also have to consider the timing of their actions and statements.
Is it believable that Purdy looked like the best QB in 2022 training camp? Sure. You were comparing him to Trey Lance, a developmental project, and Nate Sudfeld. The idea was that Trey Lance would play and get better, not that he was a polished product.
You also had Jimmy G in limbo at the time and not an active participant in training camp. They eventually restructured his deal and inserted him as the #2 QB. They cut Sudfeld.
The story York told is believable on a technical basis only (a comparison between the active QBs in training camp, not including Jimmy G who they wanted to move and was not a participant). If they thought Brock was a starter in waiting it's highly unlikely they restructure Jimmy G's deal in the fashion they did, and put him ahead of Brock.
I don't think it's all that unlikely. Just because they saw Brock as a future starter doesn't mean they would want to start a rookie QB for a team that had playoff aspirations. They invested a lot of draft capital in Lance, who had already been in the system a couple of years, so they were running out of excuses for why they wouldn't play him.. Jimmy had helped them get to a couple of NFCCGs and a Super Bowl, so he was a good insurance policy.
I think people discounting the media optics of benching your former first round pick for a rookie Mr. Irrelevant are being a little naive. They would have been raked over the coals for it and made to look like a laughingstock. As I said before, they lucked into the way that ended working out. Brock's rise fed the media exactly the kind of story they love to cover, the scrappy underdog. By the end of that season Lance had become an afterthought, not the main story.