The San Francisco 49ers have listed star quarterback Brock Purdy as “limited” in practice this week with “shoulder soreness,” and fans were optimistic when he was reportedly throwing at practice on Thursday. But it sounds like the injury could be quite a bit more severe than the team is publicly admitting.
In fact, one prominent San Francisco 49ers reporter expects him to miss Sunday’s game against the Green Bay Packers.
While Brock Purdy did technically throw in practice on Thursday, 49ers beat reporter Grant Cohn of SI offered a pretty grim report on what he witnessed while watching Purdy during practice.
“This is bizarre – the 49ers are practicing right now and Brock Purdy isn’t out there,” Cohn said in a video posted to social media on Thursday afternoon.
Brock Purdy shuts himself down mid practice. pic.twitter.com/RITVVT967p
— Grant Cohn (@grantcohn) November 21, 2024
Cohn said that Purdy threw for about five minutes, but he appeared to shut himself down midway through the throwing session and ultimately left practice early and did not return.
Cohn explained that after Purdy started throwing, he quickly stopped and saw a trainer who rubbed Purdy’s arm “pretty vigorously” before Purdy tried to warm up again.
But the second warmup did not exactly go well, according to Cohn.
“He starts trying to warm up again, throws these little 10-yard passes … they had nothing on them,” Cohn said. “It was like he was throwing as softly as he possibly could. And then after doing that for about five minutes, he stops again, talks to a trainer, starts walking off the field, and then starts running off the field and leaves and never comes back.”
Cohn admits that he does not know exactly what happened, but it certainly did not seem good.
“I don’t know what happened, but it doesn’t seem good,” Cohn said. “My best interpretation is they thought he might be able to throw today, he gave it a shot, but it didn’t work out.”
While San Francisco listed Purdy as “limited” with “shoulder soreness,” Cohn had a very different description of what he saw.
“He can’t throw a football right now,” Cohn said. “Maybe he’ll be able to throw one on Sunday, but he can’t throw a football today. Clearly, there’s pain. Like, big time.”
It’s also worth noting that Purdy was scheduled to meet with the media on Thursday afternoon, but the team canceled his media availability and moved it to Friday.
Needless to say, Purdy’s prospects of playing against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday are not exactly looking good. In fact, Cohn went as far as to indicate that he believes Kyle Allen – not Purdy – will be the team’s starting quarterback on Sunday.
We’ll have to see whether or not Purdy is able to play, but things are looking pretty grim.
