Listening to Brock Purdy, it sounds like the 49ers quarterback will try to fight past his oblique injury to play in Thursday’s key NFC West matchup against the Seattle Seahawks. With a win, the Niners can clinch the division and their seventh straight victory.
Despite straining his left oblique/rib area in Sunday’s impressive 35-7 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and being on a short week of prep, Purdy doesn’t sound like a player who’s gonna sit this one out.
Matt Barrows of The Athletic shared Purdy’s comments from Santa Clara on Tuesday afternoon.
“I feel like this is part of the game,” Purdy said. “A lot of the guys have said, ‘Welcome to the NFL.' You get banged-up a little bit and you gotta be ready to roll in four days. You gotta learn another (playbook) install, you gotta memorize plays, you gotta get guys going, new routes. This is it. This is the best of the best. For me, I look at it as a challenge, like, I gotta prove to myself that I belong here.”
Coach Kyle Shanahan is playing it a bit more cautious, saying the 49ers probably won’t make their decision on Purdy until gameday.
“We’ll find out that as these two days go,” Shanahan said. “We don’t have much time. We’re not gonna try to figure out that today or tomorrow. Probably be on Thursday we’ll have the best chance to know.”
If Purdy is unable to play, the 49ers will lean on recently-signed 36-year-old veteran Josh Johnson, who took over for mop-up duty in the final minutes on Sunday.
As for wide receiver Deebo Samuel, who suffered an MCL/ankle sprain on Sunday and had to exit early on Sunday, Shanahan thinks the team could get him back for the season finale against the Arizona Cardinals Jan. 8. By then, the 49ers could be locked into a playoff seed, so there’d be little to no pressure to bring back Deebo before the postseason.
“There’s four weeks left in the season,” Shanahan said. “I think they told me three-ish (weeks) is our expectation, so right in that area.”
