Brock Purdy Seems on Track to Start Against the Bengals

If/when Purdy does fully clear the protocol, he will start against the Bengals, according to head coach Kyle Shanahan.

Grant Cohn | Oct 27, 2023

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San Francisco 49ers

Brock Purdy most likely will start Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals despite suffering concussion-like symptoms during the 49ers' loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Monday night.

The 49ers officially list Purdy as questionable, because he has just one stage of the concussion protocol remaining to clear, but he's on track to clear it on Saturday. And he was a full participant in Friday's practice, although it was just a walkthrough, meaning there was no chance he could take an accidental blow to the helmet.

If/when Purdy does fully clear the protocol, he will start against the Bengals, according to head coach Kyle Shanahan.

"Yeah, definitely," Shanahan said on Friday. "He was full go today, so he’s just got to pass that tomorrow."

Purdy appeared to injure his head during a quarterback sneak late in the fourth quarter on Monday. He stayed in the game and threw two interceptions -- apparently he didn't experience symptoms until he was on the plane ride home. And it seems his symptoms were mild enough for him to return to action just six days later.

If Purdy doesn't clear the protocol and can't start on Sunday, the 49ers quarterback would be Sam Darnold, who has yet to start a game for San Francisco. So it's unlikely he would win his first start against Joe Burrow and the Bengals. No wonder the 49ers want Purdy to play if he can. Because if they lose this game, they'll enter the bye week on a three-game losing streak, and their chances of getting the No. 1 seed will diminish greatly.

Published Oct 27, 2023

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.