John Lynch declares 49ers leader in the clubhouse for QB1 job

The San Francisco 49ers find themselves in one of the most interesting quarterback quandaries of the entire 2023 NFL offseason, don’t they? They traded an arm and a leg in 2021 to move up for former North Dakota State star Trey Lance. They managed to squeeze one more year out of Jimmy Garoppolo than anyone thought they would be able to. They used the final pick in the 2022 NFL Draft on Brock Purdy to take a shot on a talented player. They also recently signed free agent Sam Darnold, the former no. 3 overall pick in the NFL Draft.

As fate would have it, the 49ers got to see three of those guys play in 2022, but it was an unlikely option that stepped up as the potential QB1 going forward when Brock Purdy took the reins after both Lance and Garoppolo were hurt. Purdy played so well that he’s now considered the “leader in the clubhouse” by 49ers general manager John Lynch to be the team’s QB1 in 2023.

49ers GM John Lynch calls Brock Purdy the “leader in the clubhouse” for QB1

Let’s take a look at the 49ers quarterbacks and their numbers from last season:

Trey Lance 2022 stats

• 2 games (not even two full games, however)
• 15-of-31 passing (48.4 completion rate)
• 0 TD, 1 INT
• 67 yards rushing

Brock Purdy 2022 stats

• 9 games (5 starts)
• 114-of-170 passing (67.1 completion rate)
• 13 TD, 4 INT
• 1 rushing TD
• 65% completion rate, 3 passing TDs, 1 rushing TD, 1 INT in playoffs

Sam Darnold 2022 stats (with Panthers)

• 6 games (6 starts)
• 82-of-140 passing (58.6 completion rate)
• 7 TD, 3 INT
• 2 rushing TDs

Brock Purdy gave the 49ers basically half of a season’s worth of a sample size to work with. He played incredibly well. If you were to extrapolate Purdy’s numbers over a 17-game season, including both his regular season games and postseason games, he would have been on pace for 35 touchdown passes and 10 INTs. How many teams would take that kind of production at the QB position?

If Purdy were able to keep those kinds of numbers going throughout an entire season, he’d end up someday as one of the highest-paid QBs in the NFL. It shouldn’t really come as that big of a surprise that 49ers GM John Lynch is saying Purdy is the “leader in the clubhouse” for the QB1 job. There is just not enough data to show that Trey Lance — as gifted as he is — would even be a better option on paper than the guy who was on pace for 35 touchdown passes as the Mr. Irrelevant pick in last year’s draft.

The complication here is that Purdy is recovering from a significant elbow injury. Lance is recovering from a significant ankle injury. Darnold is coming off of maybe the best six-game stretch of his NFL career.

We’ll see how the offseason goes, but obviously the 49ers need to get all these guys healthy before they can make any short-term or long-term decisions. There could be some fascinating fallout depending on what the team decides to do.