No one will ever know how the NFC Championship Game would have turned out had Brock Purdy not gotten injured, but San Francisco 49ers star Christian McCaffrey is hoping the circumstances surrounding his team’s loss will inspire a significant rule change.
The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Niners 31-7 after both Brock Purdy and backup quarterback Josh Johnson suffered injuries. During a Wednesday appearance on “Up & Adams” with Kay Adams, McCaffrey said he is hoping the NFL will change something to allow teams to carry an emergency quarterback on game day.
“You don’t want to make excuses obviously, but it just sucks because we wish we had a healthy quarterback for a full game to just see how the game would have panned out,” McCaffrey said. “It’s a really good team we played, but it just feels like something got stolen. Hopefully they change that rule where you can carry a third quarterback. That’s what I hope they do.”
The NFL used to have emergency quarterbacks available for each team who could only play if the first two quarterbacks got hurt. But the league eschewed that policy in favor of having a 46th roster spot that they could just use on any player, regardless of position. Teams could choose to use the 46th spot on a third QB, but they don’t do it. McCaffrey and others feel teams should not have to make that choice.
Having an emergency quarterback available probably would not have been the difference between winning and losing for the 49ers, but the game certainly would have been more competitive. The NFL needs to prevent that situation from happening again.
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