Brock Purdy Says He's "Not Really Sure" if He Will Play in 2023

Stop the presses.

Talk about burying the lede.

Brock Purdy recently did an interview with Yahoo! Sports, which reported that he no longer is wearing a brace on his surgically-repaired throwing arm. Meaning his recovery is going well. That's what the story is about.

But in the seventh paragraph, the author drops this bombshell: "That remains an early step in recovery, Purdy saying Friday he's 'not really sure, honestly' whether he'll play in 2023 as he takes it 'one day at a time.'

Stop the presses.

That's the big news from his most recent interview -- the fact that he doesn't know if he'll play next season. Not the fact that his brace is off. We knew his brace would come off. We did NOT know he might sit out all season. He is the first person on the 49ers to say that publicly.

At the NFL's annual meetings in a Arizona recently, 49ers general manager John Lynch said the hope is that Purdy will be fully ready for training camp, while head coach Kyle Shanahan said there's a possibility Purdy won't be ready until Week 4. So they didn't have their story straight.

It seems plausible that the 49ers know Purdy could miss the entire season and simply don't want the rest of the league to know that yet. Because if Purdy misses the whole year, then the 49ers have to draft a quarterback, possibly as early as Round 3, and they probably wouldn't want to broadcast their intentions to the rest of the world.

From Purdy's perspective, there's absolutely no reason to rush back. He already has proven he can play at a high level in the NFL -- someone will pay him big bucks eventually if he makes a full recovery. That should be his No. 1 focus -- making a full recovery.

And if he's as special as John Lynch says he is, then the 49ers should want to buy as much time for him to recover as possible, because he could be their franchise quarterback for a decade or more.

If the 49ers draft a quarterback between Rounds 3 and 5 next week, that could indicate they expect Purdy to miss significant time. 

Stay tuned.