49ers Quarterback Brock Purdy Could Hold Out this Offseason

There's no guarantee Brock Purdy will step foot on the practice field when the 49ers start OTAs in April.
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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There's no guarantee Brock Purdy will step foot on the practice field when the 49ers start OTAs in April.

Purdy wants a contract extension and said he wants to finalize it before OTAs. When asked if he would practice this offseason without an extension, he said he wasn't sure.

The 49ers almost certainly will offer him a long-term extension in the next couple months, but it probably won't be the one he wants. The 49ers have a pattern of making lowball initial offers to their best players, then waiting until August or September to make a better offer and finalize the deal.

So why would Purdy take the first offer the 49ers present him when he knows a better one will come his way a few months down the line? He'd be a fool to take their first offer.

Which means an offseason hold out seems likely. Purdy probably feels the 49ers owe him back pay for the past three seasons, and the 49ers probably feel he owes them a hometown discount after playing poorly in the fourth quarter of close games his entire career.

If Purdy does indeed hold out, the 49ers will have to find a quarterback who knows the system and can take all the first-team reps during the offseason. Jimmy Garoppolo will be a free agent, although it seems the relationship between him and the coaching staff is irreparably damaged.

Kirk Cousins also will be a free agent if the Falcons release him, which seems likely. If that happens, the 49ers could sign him to a one-year deal for the league minimum because the Falcons are on the hook for his entire salary in 2025.

This offseason could get messy.

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Grant Cohn
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.