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49ers Will Start Brandon Allen vs. Bills if Brock Purdy Can't Play

Brandon Allen's first start with the 49ers didn't go so well.

Grant Cohn

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brandon Allen (17) recover his own fumble before being sacked by Green Bay Packers linebacker Quay Walker during the first quarter of their game Sunday, November 24, 2024 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brandon Allen (17) recover his own fumble before being sacked by Green Bay Packers linebacker Quay Walker during the first quarter of their game Sunday, November 24, 2024 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. / Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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Brandon Allen's first start with the 49ers didn't go so well.

He made some nice throws, but he fumbled twice, threw an interception and the offense scored just 10 points. Considering it was his first start in three years plus he has a broken middle finger on his non-throwing hand, he played admirably.

But it's weird that he played in the first place.

The 49ers also have Joshua Dobbs who started 12 games last season and doesn't have any broken fingers.

And yet, Allen will start again next week if Purdy can't play according to head coach Kyle Shanahan.

"I thought Brandon did some real good things," Shanahan said on Monday. "He had one real bad decision at the beginning of the game, early, where he threw it to Quay Walker, and fortunately, that guy dropped it. But I thought he made some big plays in the game that gave us a chance to get back into it. Him going across the board and getting that touchdown to George Kittle, he had a couple big third downs, I thought he had a hell of a throw the one that Deebo Samuel tipped and ended up being intercepted. I think his two toughest plays were a keeper on second-and-seven where he slipped right before he threw it and the next play, I think, was that pick. But what he does have to do better is protect the ball in the pocket. The ball was on the ground too much."

MY TAKE: It's hard to expect a player with a broken finger to hold the ball securely, especially when it's cold and raining. I'm just saying.

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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.

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