BB.BREAKING: 49ers in Panic Mode — Former Falcons QB on Their Radar After Injury Chaos
The San Francisco 49ers looked at some quarterback options this week as they deal with injury issues for both Brock Purdy and Mac Jones.
The San Francisco 49ers will be without Brock Purdy again in Week 6.
The matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be the fourth game Purdy has been forced to miss this season because of turf toe.
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Unfortunately for the 49ers, that isn’t the only injury concern in their quarterback room.
Mac Jones has been filling in for Purdy, but was banged up during the team’s Week 5 win over the Los Angeles Rams.
He currently carries a “questionable” designation for the matchup against the Buccaneers.
With rookie Kurtis Rourke currently working his way back from an injury of his own, Adrian Martinez is the only fully health QB on the 49ers’ roster right now.
As a result of the injury issues at the position, the 49ers decided to have some QBs in for a workout this week.
According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, one of those quarterbacks was former Atlanta Falcons starter Desmond Ridder.
The Falcons drafted Ridder in the third round of the 2022 NFL Draft after he helped Cincinnati become the first Group of Five school to earn a spot in the College Football Playoff.
He started four games as a rookie and was then fully handed the reins in his second season. Ridder struggled in 2023, throwing 12 touchdowns and 12 interceptions and putting together a 6-7 record as the starter.
He was traded to the Arizona Cardinals ahead of the 2024 season, but didn’t take a regular season snap there before the Las Vegas Raiders picked him up off of the Cardinals’ practice squad.
He ended up starting one game for the Raiders as an injury replacement, but lost to the Falcons.
This offseason, Ridder has continued to bounce around. He signed with the Bengals in July, but was cut before the start of the season. Then he joined the Vikings after J.J. McCarthy was injured, but was released last week.
While his NFL career isn’t quite panned out, Ridder’s experience could make him a viable backup for a team in a pinch.
With the 49ers not having signed any of the QBs they worked out, they are currently set to head into the weekend with Martinez as their backup QB.
Martinez spent time with the New York Jets and Detroit Lions before joining the 49ers just ahead of the start of this season. He has yet to take a snap during the NFL regular season, but was the UFL MVP in 2024 and led the Birmingham Stallions to a title that year.
Jones is expected to be available to start against the Buccaneers, so the 49ers will just need to hope he can avoid taking any big hits this week. From there, we will have to wait and see what Purdy’s return timeline looks like.
If he’s going to miss more time, the 49ers may take another look at adding a veteran QB as an insurance plan until his turf toe has healed.
Otherwise, the 49ers likely won’t be too worried about their QB depth as they’ll know they’re in pretty good hands with Jones as a backup when Purdy is available to start.
