Heading into Sunday’s NFC Championship Game, 49 They were already down to their third-string quarterback (Brock Purdy), but after an injury to the starter, San Francisco was just one big shot away from being forced to play a quarterback who had never played a quarterback.
With Purdy on the side due to an elbow injury After suffering on the first possession of the game, San Francisco turned to fourth-stringer Josh Johnson, but he was injured in the third quarter (concussion), leaving the 49ers down to their emergency quarterback.
So who is the emergency QB? According to the Fox broadcast, that could be either Kyle Juzczyk or Christian McCaffrey. It started to look more and more likely that one of the two men would end up taking a few hits in the middle. After Johnson left, the 49ers brought Purdy back in, even though he couldn’t throw because of his injured elbow. The Eagles won the game 31-7 to reach Super Bowl LVI. McCaffrey threw a pass as the depleted 49ers stuck with running plays late in the game.
By McCaffrey’s end, he had thrown four career touchdown passes, going 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 he hasn’t thrown a pass, which means the 49ers almost certainly had to run some kind of Wildcat offense if Juszczyk or McCaffrey entered the game at QB.
The crazy thing about Juszczyk is that the NFC Championship is not the first game of this season, and he is one injury away from entering the game. In Week 2, the 49ers only had two active possessions Seahawks. It was a game where the 49ers had to turn to Jimmy Garoppolo after Trey Lance broke his ankle.
If Garoppolo had been injured in that 27-7 win, the 49ers would have had to turn to Juszczyk. At that point, Juszczyk made it clear he didn’t want the QB playing class.
“I told Jimmy in the locker room, ‘Hey man, don’t make me play quarterback today,'” Juzczyk said. Following the Week 2 win.. “And he promised to do everything possible to prevent this from happening.”