LOOK: WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair strangely calls out Brock Purdy amid injury concern
In the social media age, you never know who’s going to tweet in the middle of sports events and what they’re going to tweet about. That’s just the wide-open world of the modern sports world combined with social media. On Sunday evening, in the 2023 NFC Championship Game between the 49ers and the Eagles, 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy was injured in the first quarter with an elbow injury and decided that he couldn’t play in the game. Apparently WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair is a 49ers fan and he was not happy about his decision to not play in the biggest game of the year thus far for San Francisco.
Check out his tweet below.
It’s definitely a surprise to hear from Ric Flair during the NFC Championship Game, but he thinks Purdy not tough enough. Eventually, Purdy would return to the game, and Flair would get his wish. Backup Josh Johnson was knocked out of the game in the third quarter.
It’s amazing how many things went wrong for the San Francisco 49ers in Sunday’s game and they lost in a 31-7 beatdown. It likely wouldn’t have mattered if Purdy was healthy in the NFC Championship Game. The game was domination from the Eagles from start to finish.
It’s clear that Purdy’s elbow was injured enough to where he could barely throw at all. The 49ers called mostly runs with him out there in the second half and some Wildcat packages with Christian McCaffrey.
Sure, the season might not have ended how Purdy and the Niners wanted it to, but what a magical run it was during his first year. He was the last pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, went on to go 7-1 as the starting quarterback, and even came back in the NFC Championship Game after being injured.
It’ll be interesting to see how opposing defensive coordinators adjust to Purdy in the offseason. Because if there’s one thing we know about playing quarterback in the NFL, it’s that once coaches get a decent amount of film on a signal-caller, they’ll go to work. Defensive coordinators will spend all offseason locking in on his weaknesses in the film room, figuring out how to make things more difficult for him.