SANTA CLARA — Brock Purdy remained out of sight Wednesday, which doesn’t mean he’s out of mind.
It’s shaping up as fourth start for Mac Jones as a 49er at Tampa Bay (1:25 p.m., Fox) in a battle of 4-1 teams. The jump-to-conclusions faction on social media are already suggesting it’s a “quarterback controversy.” Or at least a “potential” quarterback controversy.
All of which seems ridiculous considering Purdy is likely to miss his second straight game with right turf toe. How can there be a question about whether it’s Purdy or Jones under center when Jones is the only one physically capable?
Here’s the obvious conclusion: The 49ers aren’t going anywhere with just Brock Purdy or just Mac Jones. They’ll need them both.
Purdy wasn’t on the field with Jones and Adrian Martinez at practice Wednesday as he was in the days leading up to an ill-fated start in a 26-21 loss to Jacksonville. No one is coming out and saying it, but either Purdy erred by insisting he was good to go, the medical staff erred by clearing him or coach Kyle Shanahan erred by going along with it.
Purdy finished the game — he turned it over three times with two interceptions and a strip-sack fumble — but going wire to wire clearly did his toe no favors. Former 49er Richard Sherman said on his podcast “ClutchPoints” he expected Purdy to be out three or four more weeks “just because of how irritated it got after that game. You don’t want to have those issues lingering through the playoffs.”
Sherman’s not a doctor, but he knows people on the 49ers and in their organization.
When the 49ers beat the Los Angeles Rams last Thursday night, Purdy wasn’t even there even though it was a one-hour flight and not a cross-country trip.
“We thought when he traveled the first time he was a little sore after it, so we just don’t want him to fly for that reason,” Shanahan said.
When the 49ers practiced last Tuesday before leaving for L.A., Purdy wasn’t on site with his familiar vehicle not in its normal parking spot.
Combine that with Purdy being sheltered Wednesday (his car was back in its spot) and you can see where this is headed, although Shanahan wasn’t going any further than saying his No. 1 quarterback wouldn’t practice.
Quarterback Mac Jones (10) passes against the Arizona Cardinals on a rollout in a 16-15 for the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium. Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group
What’s done is done. Purdy is far from the first professional athlete who pushed himself physically a little too hard, the team went along and he paid the price.
Now the question is how long should Purdy sit? That will be up to the medical staff, but if the 49ers wanted to go the “better safe than sorry” route, they’d put put him on injured reserve and he’d have to miss a minimum of four more games — making his earliest return Nov. 9 against the Rams at Levi’s Stadium.
When I put the question to Shanahan Wednesday he said, “there hasn’t been a thought on I.R. and he’s progressing.”
So we can assume Shanahan expects to get Purdy back inside of four games, with Jones continuing to pick up the slack if he can remain healthy, which was a viable question when Martinez nearly had to take the field in Los Angeles.
Jones affords the 49ers something other teams in their position don’t have. A quarterback capable of leading them to the playoffs. In Tampa Bay, Baker Mayfield is generating way-too-early MVP talk. But it’s no exaggeration that he’s been one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks through five games and the drop off from Mayfield to Teddy Bridgewater is precipitous.
The Baltimore Ravens played without Lamar Jackson Sunday and lost 44-10 to Houston with backup Cooper Rush. The Cincinnati Bengals just traded for 40-year-old Joe Flacco and immediately gave him the job.
The Bengals did this because their own franchise quarterback, Joe Burrow, is out with a case of turf toe that needed surgery, ostensibly much more serious than what Purdy is dealing with. Yet it can be serious enough to end a career, as it did with Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders.
In Charles Woodson’s second year with the Raiders, he came out of Week 2 with turf toe. Woodson was diligent about remaining out of the public eye when injured. But it didn’t seem like a big deal because he was still playing on Sundays and playing pretty well.
Then one day reporters got let in a little early, with Woodson’s locker near the entrance. Woodson’s toe was exposed and the sight of it was sickening. It was bent, splayed and swollen. One could only imagine what it felt like to walk, let alone play football.
Woodson, being a young player in his second year, missed only one start. How? He rarely practiced. Almost never did, in fact. He’d get his toe to the point where he could get a painkilling injection on Sunday, then start the whole process over the next week.
Since he was a cornerback left on an island and quarterbacks were still wary of testing him, Woodson got by. As a quarterback, Purdy can’t miss practice all week and then play on Sunday. He needs that toe to push off and throw downfield. Needs it to scramble and stay out of trouble.
While it’s not fair to compare Purdy’s turf toe with Burrow, Sanders or Woodson, it does give a glimpse into a toe-joint injury that is largely misunderstood.
Related Articles
Latest on 49ers’ Brock Purdy, Ricky Pearsall before Sunday’s visit to Bucs
Claire Kittle, Kristin Juszczyk’s new YouTube show follows 49ers season
Empty-handed 49ers seek to end their unwelcome NFL record streak
49ers, Bucs meet with 4-1 records as one-score wonders each week
49ers, hero Alfred Collins use bonus practice to wind down from win over Rams
And if the 49ers were to put Purdy on injured reserve, the gamble would be Jones making it through those four games before going back to Purdy. That’s where the 49ers are different than most teams. Jones leads the NFL pass attempts per game, completions per game and yardage per game. There isn’t another backup in the league that can match him.
Shanahan admits that Martinez, who was ready to go into the game against the Rams, represents the great unknown. He played collegiately at Kansas State and Nebraska and in the United Football League.
“When you’re in a 20-20 game or whatever it was at the time and someone’s taking over, you’re going to do what you’ve got to do,” Shanahan said. “In certain situations you’ve got to find out.”
The 49ers would rather not find out. If you’ve got two quarterbacks capable of winning, it’s a good problem to have and there’s nothing controversial about it.