Can Brock Purdy’s 49ers challenge the Cowboys and Eagles in the NFC? | You Pod to Win the Game

Yahoo Sports Charles Robinson, Jori Epstein and Charles McDonald discuss how the loss of quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is going to impact the 49ers. Can San Francisco still be the team to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl? Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.

Video transcript

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CHARLES ROBINSON: Jimmy Garoppolo-- Kyle Shanahan comes out and he says, yeah, you know, it's not the Lisfranc injury, which is a really big deal because that's a six-month minimum before he's probably back out there doing anything football-wise. It looks, though, now like it's going to be six, seven weeks, eight weeks, whatever. It's-- we see a moving timeline here.

Shanahan sure seemed to indicate that, like, look, it's Brock Purdy. Let's say they advance to the Super Bowl. It feels like it's gonna be Brock Purdy's team the rest of the season.

CHARLES MCDONALD: Maybe this is an opportunity for him to come in and show that he can be a backup quarterback. I think what he showed last week against Miami was pretty standard for what Shanahan backup quarterbacks have been. And now it's [INAUDIBLE]-- it's up to the defense to just try and get you [? through ?] that next level. But it's gonna be tough. As far as Jimmy's limitations can hinder the 49ers, his experience and just his baseline ability to run the offense is I think, undoubtedly, a pretty huge help at this point.

CHARLES ROBINSON: No matter what Kyle does, I just have such a hard time not looking at Dallas and everything that is dynamically going on on both sides of the football, the way the defense is not just predicated on getting turnovers anymore. They're very much-- they're a sack, chaos, pressure defense. The offense-- they figured out how to use the two running backs, which I think is just absolutely pivotal and changes the dynamic of it.

You look at Philly. They're gonna get Dallas Goedert back. Their number one receiver just got his former general manager fired.

I love San Francisco. Look, as Charles said, the defense is unbelievable. But I just don't know that they're as complete a team anymore as maybe Dallas and Philly are at this stage.

JORI EPSTEIN: Yeah, it's interesting 'cause if you were to think about this as, like, happening on the Buccaneers, let's say, or Green Bay, and this is Brock Purdy coming in for Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady, who felt like they were carrying the team in so many ways. Or if this was to happen on another team where maybe the quarterback wasn't all the way that developed, but the scheme was really dependent on that quarterback being transcendent.

I think that San Francisco-- I was trying to think as y'all were talking-- if there's any better place to come in as a backup quarterback than there, both from a coaching standpoint and also from the scheme 'cause, like, OK, you might say, well, Sean McVay is a great offensive play caller-schemer, typically. Obviously, this hasn't been his season. But you don't have the offensive line there. You don't have any kind of run game there.

There are so many other elements. You don't have the defense clicking in the way that it has in previous years. So I think that, relative to other opportunities, Brock Purdy has the best backup opportunity at this stage. But you still have to expect that every single opponent is going to try and come after him.

It helps that he's got Trent Williams at left tackle. That's huge in terms of his blindside. And then the goal will be, can Kyle Shanahan both identify what teams are going to try and take from him, scheme around that, and kind of like what y'all were talking about? OK, if he can get that short pass off and let the guys take it, that's how you succeed.

Now, I think this means that they can continue to win some games. They might win a playoff game. Do I think that you can make it all the way to the Super Bowl against more complete teams? I think that would be really difficult. But he's gonna have the opportunity.

I also love how, in all of these situations, you always have the teammates being, like, no, no, no, he's got swag. I feel like I've heard that in every backup quarterback story I've reported this year. I've heard that in Dallas about Will Grier. I've heard that about Cooper Rush, who like [INAUDIBLE]--

CHARLES ROBINSON: Oh, Mike-- we should talk about Mike White, right? [INAUDIBLE]

JORI EPSTEIN: --Mike White was the most recent one. Everyone was like, no, no. He's got swag. And I was like, Brock Purdy has got swag. And I'm like-- I think that's like you're trying to imbue them with confidence by asserting that they have swag.