Heading into Sunday’s NFC Championship Game 49ers were already below their third-string quarterback (brock purdy), but after the rookie’s injury, San Francisco was just one big hit away from being forced to play a quarterback who has never really played quarterback.
with Purdy on the side due to elbow injury He suffered a loss on the first possession of the game, turning to the San Francisco fourth-stringer. josh johnsonBut then he got injured in the third quarter (concussion), which left the 49ers down to their emergency quarterback.
So who is the emergency QB? According to the Fox broadcast, that would be either Kyle Juszczyk or Christian McCaffrey. It started looking more and more likely that one of those two guys might be taking some pictures down center. With Johnson out, the 49ers moved Purdy back inside, though he could barely throw due to his injured elbow. The Eagles went on to win the game, 31–7. super bowl LVII. McCaffrey threw a pass as the 49ers stuck with running plays late in the game.
In McCaffrey’s end, he threw four career passes, going 2 for 4 for 84 yards and a touchdown. He went 0 for 1 on Sunday. As for Juszczyk, he’s been in NFL for 10 seasons and he never threw a pass, meaning the 49ers would almost certainly have to run some sort of wildcat offense if either Juszczyk or McCaffrey entered the game at QB.
The crazy part about Juszczyk is that the NFC Championship isn’t even the first game this season where he’s one injury away from entering the game. Back in Week 2, at the 49ers seahawks, This was the game where the 49ers had to turn around Jimmy Garoppolo after trey lance Suffered a broken ankle.
Had Garoppolo been injured in that 27–7 victory, the 49ers would have had to turn to Juszczyk. At the time, Juszczyk made it clear that he wanted no part of playing QB.
“I told Jimmy in the locker room, I said ‘Hey man, don’t let me play quarterback today,'” Juszczyk said after the week 2 win, “And he promised he was going to do everything he could to not let that happen.”