Another NFL media member suggests Sam Darnold could be 49ers’ Week 1 starter
Yet another NFL Media member has suggested San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan could start free-agency acquisition Sam Darnold at quarterback in Week 1 of the 2023 season.
“Trey Lance is still unproven in this league,” former quarterback and current NFL Network personality David Carr said during an on-air segment, as shared by David Bonilla of 49ers WebZone. “And so you insert Sam Darnold, who I think belongs in this system. I’ve actually been saying for the last couple of years [that] he would be great in a system like this. He finds himself with a great football team. I would even argue that he might have a little bit more ability than Brock Purdy.”
Purdy, the 2022 rookie sensation, is recovering from surgery he needed to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. After Shanahan admitted during the annual league meetings this week that Purdy may not be ready to play before Week 4 of the 2023 campaign, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network said he believes “Darnold will more likely than not be the starter going into” the upcoming season.
Carr agrees with that assessment.
“Sam is kind of proven in this league,” Carr continued. “So I think it’s going to be very interesting. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sam starts Week 1 and then Brock kind of comes in and does kind of what he did last year.”
The New York Jets made Darnold the third overall pick of the 2018 NFL Draft, and he most recently appeared in six games with the Carolina Panthers last season. He completed 58.6% of 140 passes for 1,143 yards with seven touchdowns and three interceptions across those contests, and he also tallied a 4-2 record.
Perhaps most importantly as it pertains to San Francisco’s depth chart this September, nobody knows for sure how Lance will perform coming off the serious season-ending ankle injury he suffered this past September. Meanwhile, Carr hinted that Shanahan believes he can win with any of the club’s three signal-callers in the lineup.
“I’ve talked to Kyle in the last few weeks, and you could just feel that,” Carr explained. “You can hear him in the press conferences, when he talks at the owners’ meetings, he’s like, ‘No, I think this is going to be fun. This is the situation that we found ourselves in.'”
The 49ers aren’t actively shopping Lance and likely have no reason to do so this spring or summer. However, it seems clear the 2021 first-round draft pick won’t be cemented atop the depth chart even if he is 100% healthy when training camp sessions begin.
