Kurtenbach: Tight end at QB? Rourke injury left 49ers one hit away from preseason disaster
SANTA CLARA — It doesn’t matter if it’s January, with a Super Bowl on the line, or an August preseason game where half the stadium is empty and the other half is thinking about beating traffic.
Chaos will find the San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback room.
On Thursday night, the Niners tempted fate by suiting up only two quarterbacks against the Titans. By halftime, one was at the hospital, and the other was running for his life on every snap while frantically shaking out his throwing hand.
And for anyone who watched the 2022 NFC Championship Game, there was only one question to ask:
Who is the emergency quarterback?
Because the concept of who will take snaps if every quarterback is injured isn’t a quirky hypothetical in Santa Clara. No, it’s localized trauma.
The answer on Thursday was tight end Brayden Willis.
And he nearly played.
Yes, it took less than two quarters for the Niners’ game of Russian roulette to click onto a live round.
Kurtis Rourke, who was excellent Thursday, took a violent shot on a goal-line scramble, was left struggling to breathe, and was subsequently whisked away to the hospital.
“They just want to go get more imaging and find out, so we weren’t too concerned,” Niners coach Kyle Shanahan said. “I don’t want to downplay it too much, but also not trying to overplay it, either.”
In the meantime, it left Adrian Martinez as the Niners’ QB1-and-only for the better part of three quarters.
Seeing as the Kansas State product is a human firework who treats the pocket like a suggestion and scrambles like he’s trying to escape a wasp’s nest, that was not exactly a comfortable situation.
And when Martinez ran off the field in the first half favoring his throwing hand, Shanahan was likely wondering if he should have extended his recovery from last month’s car crash concussion.
“From second quarter on, we were talking about what guys who were in the game who could hand it off, or take a snap and hand it off,” Shanahan said after the game.
That guy was Willis.
And seeing as he already wears No. 9, he might not have even looked that out of place.
He told me after the game that he was ready should his number have been called.
After all, he had already lived the nightmare of being an emergency quarterback, of sorts, on national television, in the biggest game of the year.
A Thursday night in August against the Titans? Child’s play.
When I asked Willis when the last time he played quarterback was, I was expecting high school, maybe even Pop Warner.
He hit me with “the 2022 Red River Shootout.”
And then the memories came flooding back for both of us — me, a college football junkie, and him, having lived a pretty infamous couple hours.
Yes, of course he had played quarterback in that game — the annual showdown between Willis’ Oklahoma and archrival Texas at the Cotton Bowl. Sooners quarterback Dillon Gabriel was unavailable to play, following a brutal concussion the week before.
And after Oklahoma coaches took a few looks at backup Davis Beville, they decided their best offensive strategy against the Longhorns was to have Willis and some friends run the Wildcat.
Three weeks prior, Willis had thrown a touchdown against Nebraska on a double pass. He could do it without the need for trickery, right?
Well, Willis didn’t attempt a pass against the Longhorns, but he did carry the ball seven times for 18 yards.
Oh, and Oklahoma lost 49-0 in an offensive display that set modern football back 80 years, though Willis maintained Thursday that they moved the ball just fine.
Interpretations aside, Thursday night offered a chance at bizarre, exhibition-grade redemption for the depth tight end.
Willis laughed about the possibility, but he wasn’t pulling punches about what would’ve happened if Martinez had been sidelined like Rourke.
“We would have had some words,” Willis said with a grin.
Still, the one-time signal-caller understood the assignment: Protect the ball, take the snap, get rid of the ball, and don’t get anyone injured.
“Oh yeah, I was ready,” Willis said, calling it a “no-loss situation.”
Anything to help the team, right?
After all, who would have any exceptions for Willis at quarterback?
If he throws an interception or fumbles a snap, he’s just a tight end at quarterback in a preseason game.
But if he completes a 5-yard pass, he’s a legend forever — and a tough cut at the end of camp.
As for the peculiarity of it all?
“That’s the preseason, for sure,” Willis said.
It’s also classic 49ers football: Murphy’s Law in pads.
Behind a patchwork third-string offensive line that was being worked, Martinez, who was sacked twice and avoided a handful more, made everyone hold their breath for three quarters. But the 49ers ultimately survived Thursday’s game without having to run the single-wing offense with a reserve tight end.
With Rourke injured (he was discharged from the hospital, though), another game in a week, little roster flexibility to add a fifth quarterback, and little-to-no desire to play Brock Purdy or Mac Jones this preseason, the Niners aren’t out of the woods just yet.
So No. 9 will be keeping the arm loose, just in case.