00:00We need to play two pieces of quarterback sound from last night, not one.
00:05You referenced Melissa Stark on ANBC and this report about Brock's injury.
00:10There's a Mac Jones piece of commentary, though, that we need to go through as well.
00:15First of all, here's Stark on Brock and the toe.
00:20Back at Levi's Stadium, you see Brock Purdy there.
00:23Turf toe may not sound like much, but it can be debilitating.
00:26There are varying degrees for Brock.
00:28He hyperextended his right big toe week one, tearing the stabilizing ligaments under the joint.
00:34In addition to being extremely painful, turf toe limits the toe's ability to flex.
00:39And Brock told me any movement in the wrong direction can set him back.
00:43He said he is truly day-to-day.
00:45There is no timeline for his return.
00:47He called this injury so annoying, saying he's never dealt with something that lingers this long.
00:52Okay, so I just want to kind of go look backward for a second with regard to kind of how we got to this point.
00:59Because Diana Russini, who is very respected for The Athletic, reported over the weekend that both Brock Purdy and Ricky Pearsall are expected back next week against Houston.
01:08That has been backed by some of the local beat writers of the 49ers as well over the last 48 hours.
01:14But then you got this Melissa Stark report, and then you got Kyle Shanahan, who just spoke to the media and said this week's kind of the same as last week for Brock.
01:23And at least one person on the call, who we have on all the time, Cam Inman, he sort of translated that as it's a long shot.
01:32It's a long shot for Brock Purdy to play this week.
01:35And I have arrived at the spot of confusion.
01:40That's where I've arrived.
01:42And this has nothing to do with who's playing better or what the right thing is to do, because you love to be a radio doctor.
01:48And I very much push as hard as I can to not do that, because I'm not smart when it comes to items related to health.
01:57I've had one, two, I think three, three surgeries in my life, and two of them were hernias.
02:04And two of them happened before I was 10 years old.
02:08Like, I have no clue what the hell is going on at the hospital.
02:13I have no idea.
02:15Yeah, fair enough.
02:16So.
02:17I've had, I think, six or seven, and I'm looking at three or four next year alone.
02:21You actually lead America in all non-football players in surgeries.
02:25Sure.
02:25That's a stat.
02:26No, that's a stat.
02:28That's a stat.
02:29No, I don't know.
02:30So I don't want to pretend, you know, this means that.
02:34So whenever I hear people, and Steini could do this every week, and then he's coming here on Monday, and I drive to the show.
02:40Yep.
02:41And they're going, I don't think he can play.
02:43And I'm like, I.
02:44He's 74%, Mark.
02:46How do we know?
02:48How do we know?
02:49We can't do the whole, like, well, if it hurts, then you can't play.
02:53Because it's football.
02:54And they all hurt.
02:54They're all hurt.
02:56I do think that all the reports can be taken together in the same bucket, and they can all be true.
03:02And, you know, Diana Rossini and company can think he's expected to play, and they're right.
03:07And Melissa Stark, in her report about talking to Brock, and Brock's like, yeah, it's day-to-day.
03:12She's also right.
03:13And I do put all of this against the backdrop of them being five and two.
03:17And if they were four and three, or three and four, there might be different ways that they look at it.
03:23I do think that if this was week 17 and week 18, and it's a win-and-get-in scenario, well, all of a sudden, my toe feels a little bit better.
03:32I think at five and two, you can be a little bit more cautious with a quarterback who's four and one as your backup and a team that is still winning without him.
03:41Well, and you already pushed it once.
03:43Like, you already tried to return once, and it didn't work.
03:46So, I get all that.
03:47But what's sort of confusing to me, there's two pieces of it.
03:53You just kind of were talking about one of them, and that's the conflicting reports.
03:58The other thing is the secrecy.
04:00Like, I don't get what happened last night.
04:04And I get that it's Sunday night football, and maybe that's the simple answer.
04:08It's Sunday night football.
04:10This is the big, big thing.
04:12This is the NFL's feature moment of the week.
04:15So, maybe that's why.
04:16But why the hell did Brock sit down with Melissa Stark and just start explaining everything that he's been feeling?
04:25Emotionally, mentally, physically.
04:29Why did he sit down with Melissa Stark for Sunday night football and explain to her exactly where he's at?
04:36And quite frankly, he put a cloud over this that is going to make fans feel like,
04:42dude, you shouldn't come back until Thanksgiving.
04:44The way that report sounded, it's truly day-to-day.
04:49Any bad movement makes me sit back.
04:52And it's really annoying.
04:53Well, I mean, like, now nobody wants to see you play.
04:56Because it's going to feel like you're really pushing it.
04:59So, what, like, and if you were going to be that forthcoming with Melissa Stark last night,
05:04I don't know, Niners, where has that been for the last six weeks?
05:08We didn't even know what foot it was until last night.
05:11Right.
05:11And it's ultimately up to him to share whatever he wants to share with Melissa Stark.
05:16If she goes up to him and asks him, how you feeling, he can say whatever he wants to say.
05:22It's his toe.
05:23And if the team wants to take a different tack, they absolutely can.
05:26And they have.
05:27And Shanahan, you know, talking about, I'm not even sure if it's turf toe.
05:30If you guys want to call it that and stuff, we can call it that.
05:32But it's a variant and all the rest of it.
05:34And we never knew which toe and all the rest of it.
05:36And so, yeah, they can be as secret as they want.
05:39But at the end of the day, it's his toe.
05:41And if she wants to ask him, he's allowed to tell her what he wants to tell her.
05:45And I do think that what he said is probably the closest thing to the truth that we've seen.
05:50But these are not always actually individual decisions.
05:53I'm not, like, refuting what you're saying.
05:55Brock is allowed to speak as an adult.
05:57Right, he's a grown-up, sure.
05:58But make no mistake, teams absolutely muzzle their players when it comes to injuries.
06:03They do at times.
06:05100%.
06:05He's been out for, he's missed five of the seven games.
06:08And so, it's pretty apparent that it's more than just an owie.
06:12Right, but, like, this is why, for example, we suddenly did an about-face week one
06:17when Christian McCaffrey had everybody over at his locker.
06:20Remember after he left practice with the calf and everyone's like,
06:23oh, my God, he's going to miss the whole year.
06:25And then 24 hours later, he's at his locker talking to everybody.
06:29And it was a clue.
06:29It was like, oh, wait, they're actually not that worried about it.
06:32Because if you're hurt, they don't let you go to the locker.
06:35They don't let you go dive deep with the player so that the player –
06:40and the main reason for that is managing expectations of the fan base.
06:44You don't want to tell people or make them think you're going to play and then not play
06:49because it makes you look weak.
06:51Yes, and I think this is actually managing expectations.
06:54This is him saying it's not as easy as, you know, my toe hurts.
06:58You know, I'm day-to-day.
07:00I don't know how I'll feel on Tuesday, let alone next Sunday when I'm expected to play.
07:04I don't know how the hell you could listen to this, though,
07:06then if we take it at face value and think, well, when – like, yeah,
07:10maybe it is two more months.
07:13I mean, when is that not going to be the case anymore?
07:15No timeline?
07:16Right.
07:17Okay.
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