Going into the NFC Championship game on Sunday, the 49ers They were already running back to a third-string quarterback (Brock Purdy), but after the rookie was injured, San Francisco was one big punch away from being forced to play a quarterback who had never actually played quarterback.
with Purdy on the sidelines due to an elbow injury He suffered their first possession of the game, San Francisco turned to fourth-down Josh Johnson, but then suffered an injury in the third quarter (concussion), which led to the 49ers running back to emergency quarterback.
So who is the emergency QB? That would be either Kyle Joszczek or Christian McCaffrey, according to the Fox broadcast. It’s starting to look more and more like it’s possible that one of those two guys could end up taking a few shots under center. With Johnson out, the 49ers brought Bure back again, even though he could barely throw due to his injured elbow. The Eagles won the game, 31-7, to reach Super Bowl LVII. McCaffrey threw one pass, as the 49ers hung mostly with runs late in the game.
On the McCaffrey end, he threw four career passes, went 2 for 4 for 84 yards and a touchdown. He went 0 for 1 on Sunday. As for Juszczyk, he’s been in the NFL for 10 seasons and has never thrown a pass, which means the 49ers would almost certainly have to implement some sort of Wildcat offense if Juszczyk or McCaffrey entered the game at QB.
The crazy part about Juszczyk is that the NFC Championship isn’t even the first game of the season that he’s one injury away from entering the game. Again in Week 2, the 49ers had only two active quarterbacks against Seahawks. That was the game where the 49ers had to turn to Jimmy Garoppolo after Tre Lance fractured his ankle.
If Garoppolo had picked up the injury in the 27-7 win, the 49ers would have had to turn to Juszczyk. At the time, Juszczyk made it clear he wanted no part of playing QB.
“I told Jimmy in the locker room, I said ‘Hey man, don’t make me a quarterback today,'” He said after winning Week 2. He promised that he would do everything in his power not to let that happen.”
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