49ers' Brock Purdy returns to practice, says 'arm feels great' - ESPN

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — To many outside observers, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy's participation in Thursday's practice might be viewed as him being well ahead of schedule in his recovery from right elbow surgery on March 10.

But to Purdy and his teammates, his presence under center with the starting offense in San Francisco's second training camp practice was no surprise.

"[I] never jumped ahead of schedule or tried to do anything out of the ordinary," Purdy said Thursday afternoon. «We had really great advice from all those professionals along the way and slowly got to where we're at. And still have a plan to continue to carry out. It's not, 'We made it through practice and it's over.' We still have some stuff to do.»

Indeed, Purdy's recovery from the torn right ulnar collateral ligament he suffered early in an NFC Championship Game loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in January is not fully complete. For now, he's practicing two out of every three days. But there's little doubt that Purdy — just four and a half months removed from that UCL repair — is on course to be San Francisco's starting quarterback on Sept. 10 against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

And though Purdy said Thursday that coach Kyle Shanahan has not yet told him that he's starting that day, Shanahan and general manager John Lynch said all offseason that a healthy Purdy would be in line for that job after leading the Niners to a 7-1 record in eight starts to end 2022. They backed that up on Thursday when Purdy took all 21 of the reps with the starting offense and completed 3-of-10 passes with an interception to safety Tashaun Gipson on his second throw.

Backups Trey Lance and Sam Darnold alternated snaps with the second team while veteran Brandon