San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan appeared on KNBR on Thursday and confirmed that the starting quarterback won’t play in Week 2 against the New Orleans Saints. But the team isn’t ruling out Brock Purdy for next week, according to Shanahan:
Yeah, the same deal as what I said yesterday. Still a chance he can miss the next game. We’re not sure. We’ll see how the toe heals. It’s kind of week-to-week right now, but he’s getting better. Had a good rehab day today, and hopefully, we’ll have some
better luck next week.
Mac Jones gets the nod under center, while Adrian Martinez will be elevated from the practice squad and serve as Jones’ backup:
“We only are allowed two practice squad guys up, so we’ve got a few roster situations. If we wanted to sign a guy to our 53, we’d have to cut another guy. And with the number of guys being injured, that aren’t on IR and things like that, it kind of made it difficult for us to have three quarterbacks in the building this week.”
Shanahan said the 49ers are going to go into the game with at least two quarterbacks, but the third would need to be on the 53 for that option to be available. That doesn’t sound like an option, for this week, at least.
It was more coachspeak than anything, but Shanahan said he liked how Martinez handled himself on the scout team this week. Martinez has gotten all of the reps, and Shanahan said if his number is called, he’s confident that Martinez can go in and run the offense. If you’ve ever watched college football when Martinez was at Nebraska, let’s hope we don’t have to find out.
As for the starter, Shanahan feels like the 49ers were fortunate to get Mac Jones this offseason:
He had great OTAs. He had a great offseason here in training camp. Had a little setback there at the end of training camp, missing those two weeks with his knee, but he’s been back out here these last two weeks, and he’ll be ready to go on Sunday.
We felt fortunate to get him, especially with him being able to play. I was hoping it wouldn’t be this early. You never want your backup to have to go in because you don’t want your starter to get hurt, but we feel really good about our backup quarterback here.
I just think he knows how to play the position in terms of he knows how to play in the pocket. A lot of people know how to play in there when the pass rush isn’t very good, but he can play in there when the pass rush is really good or when it’s not there at all. He knows how to distribute the ball, he knows how to get the ball to the right spots, and he knows when he can hold on to it, when he can’t. He did that as well as anyone that I’ve seen coming out of college, and he’s shown that in the NFL also.
It’s still Shanahan’s offense. His scheme is the star. Wide receivers will be open, especially if the 49ers can get speedy rookie wideout Jordan Watkins back and Jauan Jennings on the field. If not, it’ll be interesting to see how conservative Shanahan’s game plan is with Christian McCaffrey and Ricky Pearsall as the only trustworthy targets for Jones.
