4-Time Super Bowl Champion Compares Brock Purdy To A 49ers Legend

Getty Brock Purdy celebrating the San Francisco 49ers win over the Seattle Seahawks.

Brock Purdy has been the San Francisco 49ers‘ starting quarterback for two games, with a third effectively being a start in everything but the official stat line after his predecessor, Jimmy Garopollo, suffered an injury against the Miami Dolphins that could end his 2022 season. He’s logged 192 offensive snaps, has completed 58 of his 84 passes for 612 yards and six touchdowns, and has thrown just one interception, which is only his second on the season overall.

While opinions on Purdy have varied across the league, with Richard Sherman calling him a “system quarterback” in his role on Thursday Night Football, others, including former 49ers linebacker-turned-media personality Bill Romanowski have seen enough to boldly declare that Purdy, despite his limited sample size, has the makings of a franchise quarterback, as he detailed on the Zach Gelb Show.

“I have to admit, I’m pretty blown away — he’s got some Joe Montana in him,” Romanowski said h/t NBC Sports Bay Area. “He’s got crazy confidence, and he’s calm. The moment isn’t too big for him. He’s executing, he’s smart. I mean, how the guy was the last person taken in the draft, I don’t get it. Because I see a phenomenal player… I think he’s their franchise quarterback.”

Wow, Joe Montana? Romanowski would certainly know a thing or two about how Montana plays football, as they were teammates from 1988-1992, comparing the rookie quarterback selected with the final pick in the 2022 NFL Draft to both a Hall of Famer and one of the best quarterbacks in 49ers franchise history is a bold ask. Fortunately, Romanowski did provide a caveat to his claim which should temper expectations ever so slightly.

“The only wild card in this is, there’s not a lot of tape on Purdy,” Romanowski explained. “Because of it, defensive coordinators don’t really have a good feel on how to attack him yet. That might be the wild card here… As soon as they figure out where his weak points are and tendencies are, they may start attacking strengths. That might be a difference-maker. But, as far as what I see, I see a franchise quarterback of the 49ers for the next, call it, 15-20 years.”

If Purdy can put it all together and play quarterback for the 49ers until he’s 42, he will certainly go down as the most valuable draft selection in franchise history. But even if he falls short of those lofty expectations, Purdy’s play has been impressive enough to make such bold claims feel acceptable to express.

The San Francisco 49ers Are Keeping Trey Lance Engaged

Though Purdy is now in place as the 49ers’ QB1, the player who filled that role in Week 1, Trey Lance, hasn’t been completely excluded from the team, let alone forgotten. With his leg finally out of a walking boot after suffering a brutal ankle injury in Week 2, Lance has become a fixture of San Francisco’s weekly routine, from meetings to walkthroughs, and even on the sidelines during games. After the 49ers’ Monday Night Football showdown with the Arizona Cardinals, Kyle Shanahan explained how the process has been working out well for his second-year quarterback, as detailed by NBC Sports Bay Area.

“It was cool just getting him to travel with this for the first time out in Colorado, so him being in every meeting and being able to go all those places with us and have him on the Saturday night meeting, or in this case the Sunday night meeting, before the game so we can go over all the third downs and red zone stuff, so now he’s preparing like he’s playing except for everything on the field,” coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters on Wednesday regarding Lance.”

“I don’t think he’s running,” Shanahan said. “I know he is out of the boot, walking around well. I’m not sure exactly where he is at in that, but he’s not going real hard at it yet.”

Has the way the 49ers view Lance long-term changed along with the improved play of Purdy? Only John Lynch, Shanahan, and company know the answer to that, but if Lance were to become available due to Purdy’s play, there are already fanbases lining up to mock trade for the North Dakota State star.

Writers Are Already Mock-Trading Trey Lance

Though the 49ers would never openly talk about placing Lance on the trade block in the middle of the regular season, especially after just two starts with Purdy under center, blogs, writers, and content creators alike have started to hypothesize about whether the NDSU product could be available next spring and what it would cost to acquire his services.

One of those writers is Mike Roberts of Sportskeeda, who believes the Indianapolis Colts could be in the market for a player like Lance’s services, as they’ve made somewhat of a tradition out of trading for quarterbacks to run their offense. First, they made a deal to acquire Carson Wentz from the Philadelphia Eagles, exchanging what ended up becoming a third-round pick in 2020 and a first-round pick in 2021 after the former second-overall pick hit a certain number of snaps played. The team then acquired Matt Ryan from the Atlanta Falcons for a third-round pick in 2022.

Would the 49ers trade Lance to the Colts or any other team? How much would it cost to acquire Lance if he were to be made available, and is there any team who would willingly pay that price? Only time will tell, but the fact that folks are already speculating about a potential trade is interesting in its own right.