John Lynch Gives Updates on Brock Purdy and Trey Lance

John Lynch answered questions at the NFL Scouting Combine on Tuesday about the 49ers' roster in general, and the health status of Brock Purdy and Trey Lance in particular. He's a transcript of what Lynch said, courtesy of the 49ers P.R. staff.

Can you just give us an update on QB Brock Purdy and when he can visit Dr. Meister?

“Yeah, Brock is down in Arizona. His folks are from there in Gilbert, Arizona. Dr. Meister is the orthopedist for the Texas Rangers. He'll be traveling to spring training later this week and so they're going to meet there and hopefully everything's good and he's made the progress necessary. Just commenting on that, I really want to thank Dr. Meister. He called me when he made that decision. That's a tough decision to make, but I really appreciate the courage and the conviction to make that decision. It's all about the best outcome. Is it ideal? No, for a variety of reasons, time being number one, you want every waking minute that you have, but ultimately, he's 22-years old. We want the best outcome. And that's where Dr. Meister made a really tough decision and we're very appreciative. And he's done thousands of these surgeries and when you have all the swelling out, when you have all the stiffness out, is when he's had the best success with the outcomes. And so, we're very thankful and we're hopeful that when they meet down in Arizona this week they can move forward and then it would be early next week as to when they would go in there and have the surgery.”

Is it possible that some healing has already begun or is that something that they just can't tell right now?

“Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people talk about the ambiguity because you hear, well, you never know until you get in there. I get told that every time one of our players has a surgery and I think that's surgeons just covering their bases. They never know. MRIs tell a whole lot of the picture, but you really, truly don't know until you get in there and see exactly what's going on, so we're doing lots of praying and pulling for Brock and he's a tireless worker, and so he's doing everything that he can and hopefully we get some clarity moving forward here.”

That six-month timeframe, is that when he can start throwing again or is he going to be ready to go in six months?

“There's a variety of different timeframes and Dr. Meister had a great line that I can't share with you, but it was very clever just about how he doesn't have a crystal ball and every player's different. Every person's different, so timelines are just that, they're guidelines, but we'll see. The reality is the majority of these are done on baseball players. This is not a baseball injury. Even the way in which it happened, Brock's going to throw and a 250-pound man with an opposing force, it's a different injury and so, the outcomes are different and we'll see where it goes.”

As an organization proven to be more proactive, in terms of the quarterback position, you need a certain amount of quarterbacks to run reps, does this put you firmly in a position where you have to look at the veteran quarterback, somebody that rely on just case things don't go well or do you look in the draft to try and find another Brock Purdy type?

“Yeah, well, ironically, we made that decision last year and I felt really good going into training camp that we were kind of insulated in the event that anything happened. And unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough. It got us right at the end and so I think we're all product of our experiences. We've learned, I was in some meetings today where the league discussing potential solutions for third quarterbacks such that we never have that kind of-- but the reality is it's very few and far between where those instances happen. So, we'll see and yeah we may have to look into the quarterback market in addition to Brock and [QB] Trey [Lance] to insulate ourselves from whatever may happen.”

What are those solutions?

“We'll see, but we'll do our due diligence like we always do.”

You talked about potentially maybe being in the market for a veteran quarterback, the two that get linked to you guys all the time. One is QB Jimmy Garoppolo, the other is former NFL QB Tom Brady. Can you speak to both them and whether they can be linked to you guys again?

“Yeah, first of all with Jimmy, Jimmy has been tremendous for us. In our first year, at the end of the year we do a trade and Jimmy comes in, lights it up and a lot of people want to talk about what we didn't accomplish with him. What I know is we won a lot of football games with Jimmy. I admire, we admire his toughness. We admire the teammate that he was, so I know everyone wants to talk about some discourse and all that, but I do believe that it's probably run its course, but I think we leave with nothing but fond memories of Jimmy and Jimmy's going to go play good football for someone. As for the other guy, I sent him a text when he retired. He was a teammate for about three weeks at one point, so I sent him a text, just congratulations on one of the greatest careers that I've ever seen in any sport. And I wished him the best, so we'll leave it at that.”

Where is Trey at right now, I know he started throwing this weekend. When do you hope that he's fully ready?

“He's doing really well. I feel like I tell you guys this all the time, but when I'm on my office, I got a nice view. I'm on the second floor, I got a nice view of the field. I get reports obviously, but my eyes tell me a lot and I'm watching Trey out there taking drops each day. I don't see a limp. It's not to say he's a 100%, but he's really recovering well and doing a really nice job and so, he did start the throwing here recently. Trey's rehabbing extremely well. He did have that secondary procedure. It wasn't really a setback. One of the plates was kind of given some interference with some of the tendons, stuff above my head, but they took care of it and he seems to be doing really well and we're happy for him.”

When you look at his game, what would you say was the biggest bright spot early in the season? What where would you say he has the biggest room for improvement?

“Well, I think when we made the move to go up and get a guy like Trey, you don't do it just for one thing, you do it for a variety of things. Trey brings a lot to the table. I think first of all, you talk with his makeup of his character, who he is as a person. We really believed in that and we’re probably even stronger on that. He does bring kind of that dual capacity where we felt like he could be a pocket passer, but also add another dimension as a runner. I think his biggest thing, we just have to find a way and I've had a lot of conversations with Trey, early in my career, I struggled to stay healthy and then I hit an eight-year stretch where I didn't miss the snap, so sometimes you just have to go through that, the rough patches and he has to play. And that's the biggest challenge, we have a team that's ready to go now. He has to get out there and play. Brock got that opportunity this year. He grabbed it, he did great things, we'll see at some point how we get Trey that opportunity because we very much believe in who he is as a person and who he is as a quarterback.”

And just to add onto that, when you've seen him develop, how have you seen him grow as a person from when you first met him to right now?

“Yeah. Well I think adversity can either break you or it can make you stronger. What I know about Trey Lance is he's a guy who's going to take that and find a way to learn from it. And that's what he's tried to do. I think the coolest thing for me was to watch him help Brock after he was hurt. Not an easy thing to do. I can't say enough about the job [quarterbacks coach] Brian Griese did. He was a huge part of our success, but the first person that Brock would come off to and talk to was Trey and I watched that and I thought that was so cool. And it speaks to who he is and his character and it's why we believed in him so much when we drafted him.”