SAN JOSE — Kyle Shanahan believes Brock Purdy will be even better after he comes back from his elbow injury, and that could be in training camp.
Purdy has worked diligently during the early phases of the 49ers' offseason program, two months after undergoing surgery on the ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing arm, and Shanahan gave an update on the 49ers quarterback's progress Wednesday night.
“As long as Brock’s elbow heals right, he will be the exact same guy,” the 49ers coach said during the Dwight Clark Legacy Series event at the California Theatre. “And when you have a clean break like that, or tear, it will be. You can’t have a setback and you can’t have something heal wrong, but everything has been completely on pace.
“Just watching him now, he’s doing all the same drills all the other quarterbacks are doing. He’s just using a towel to throw. But still doing violent motions, still moving it, but he’s just not doing it with a football. He will get closer to that, and as long as there’s not a setback, we think he will be there in training camp [in July], but he can get so much better right now.”
Rookies come to the 49ers' facility a few weeks after Phase 1 of the offseason program begins. Returning players already are in the classrooms, though, watching clips of past games and learning the details of the offense from the ground up.
To start learning Shanahan’s offense last year, Purdy watched film of now-Raiders quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and Trey Lance run the system. Now Purdy, in his second NFL season, has the advantage of coming in on Day 1 to analyze what he was able to do during live games and improve from it.
Shanahan believes Purdy, who went 7-0 as the 49ers' starter before being injured in the NFC Championship Game, will find much more value from those sessions, even if he can’t yet throw a football.
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“You have an hour and a half meeting about one play, that has so many different intricacies of it and a guy has never done it before,” Shanahan said. “But he’s watching all these other people do it. Whether it’s eight different quarterbacks over 15 different years in all different situations and [now], at the end of it, he gets to see himself run it for seven plays last year.
“He gets to see Jimmy run it four times last year, he gets to see Trey do it one time. And then he can actually put himself in the situation. Now, I remember how those six clips felt. I remember those looks. I remember that coverage. I remember why I did good or bad. Now, what can I do going forward. Now those other 80 clips of other people actually mean something to me."
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Purdy already is known as a preparation fanatic, which is why the 49ers' offense didn’t skip a beat when he took in Week 13 last season. He already had gone over every play mentally and on air on the field after practice.
“It’s about how you play the game, and Brock does that very naturally,” Shanahan said. “But now he’s actually looking at it, having experience, being able to learn everything and slow it down, and sit there and to me when you can’t jump in there and go full speed.
“Because you had that experience, and now he can just sit back and watch it, I think he’s going to be a hell of a lot better.”
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