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What are the Odds that Brock Purdy will Start Against the Bengals?

Don't you get the feeling that Kyle Shanahan would like to see what Sam Darnold can do before the bye week?

Grant Cohn

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I'm not great with numbers, but from what I can gather, I'd give Brock Purdy a 40 percent chance to start against the Bengals this Sunday, and Sam Darnold a 60 percent chance.

Purdy suffered a concussion Monday night during the 49ers' loss to the Vikings -- he appeared to take a vicious shot to the head on a quarterback sneak late in the game. And although the 49ers are on a short week and Purdy won't practice, he still has time to clear the concussion protocol before Sunday and play in the game.

But don't you get the feeling that Kyle Shanahan would like to see what Sam Darnold can do before the bye week? Shanahan is the biggest Darnold fan on the planet. This offseason, Shanahan compared him to Steve Young. And just yesterday, Shanahan raved about Darnold. "I have as much confidence in Sam as I could have with someone that I haven't gone into a real NFL game with," Shanahan said.

I get the feeling Shanahan thinks he knows what he has in Purdy, and he's skeptical that it's sustainable. The past two weeks paint a picture of a limited quarterback who flew too close to the sun and is plummeting back down to Earth like Icarus. Now it could be Darnold's turn for a week. Which brings up two issues.

One: If Darnold plays well and the 49ers score 30 points and win, is that the end of the Brock Purdy fairytale? It might be.

Two: If Sam Darnold is ordinary or worse, the 49ers can go back to Purdy after the bye week with no bumps in the road, but it would raise one further question:

How would Trey Lance do in this position?

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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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