49ers coach Kyle Shanahan says Brock Purdy, starters could play against Broncos this weekend

Kyle Shanahan may give 49ers fans a brief peak at quarterback Brock Purdy when the team meets the Broncos this Saturday.

However, Shanahan gave himself some wiggle room. In an interview with KNBR, the coach used the word might. That’s because Shanahan could start Sam Darnold.

“We planned on Sam going the first half,” Shanahan said Thursday. “We just finished practice here. I’m gonna talk to the trainers with the rest of our team and everything. I might get Brock in there for a little bit. Have not finalized that yet.

“But thinking about playing the ones for possibly a series a little in the first quarter. But whatever that is, if we don’t, Sam will have the whole first half and if those guys do open the game with Brock and some of the ones, it probably won’t be much longer than a series or two.”

The statement is telling. For one, Purdy’s surgically-repaired elbow seems to be an after thought. So the second-year quarterback is definitely ahead of where doctors initially thought when he tore a tendon in the NFC title game. And, Shanahan dropped a big hint about what he thinks about Trey Lance. Darnold gets the chunk of reps in the first half. Trey Lance will play in the second.

So that appears to be the 49ers QB depth chart — Purdy, Darnold and Lance. This time a year ago, Lance was the starter and Purdy still was known as the last guy selected in the 2022 NFL Draft. The 49ers drafted Lance with the third pick of the 2021 draft with the idea that he’d be their quarterback of the future. The knock on him was that he hadn’t played much. He only spent one season as the starter at North Dakota State. And he didn’t play at all during fall, 2020.

The 49ers and a number of teams evaluated Lance by projecting what he could do in the NFL. He then suffered a foot injury last September. And almost a year later, he’s dropped two spots on the depth chart. Shanahan signed Darnold, the USC star and No. 3 selection of the 2018 draft, after Jimmy Garoppolo left for the Raiders.

And if you’re a football fan in general, you might enjoy this preseason game more than a lot of others. Sean Payton, who is in his first year as coach of the Broncos, used his starters, including quarterback Russell Wilson, for an extended stay in the first half. So the first quarter and possibly the second, could see first-teamers playing for both teams.

“My main goal in it is that everyone gets out healthy, but I want to see us play better,” Shanahan said. “I want our coaches to be sharper. I want our players to be sharper. We’ll play a few more guys in this but I still see it as kind of the fourth practice of the week.”