Steve Young is extremely against 49ers sitting Brock Purdy this week

In his weekly interview with KNBR’s “Tolbert and Copes” show, Niner legend Steve Young made it clear that he does not believe skipping a game is a good idea for a quarterback.

“From the quarterback spot, I don’t like it. I don’t like sitting out,” Young said. “Taking a week off … I’d rather warm up, play a quarter or even a half and be done. Like that’s the way to kind of stay with it. I don’t feel like there’s any negative. You’re taking the next week off, so you’re not going to play for three weeks, 21 days. From the quarterback spot, that’s a hard restart. It takes a minute. I always said, ‘Every game you miss, it takes a half to get fully up to speed.’”

Young said his preference is to go through the usual routines and habits of playing in a game and feel “all that pressure that you get used to,” even if only for a short stint. In his eyes, it’s a big mistake for a player to feel they can take any game off. 

“You have to be ready to play emotionally to play football,” Young said. “When you get to the pro game, no one’s just chilling. You got to go through the routine. You got to get ready, and you’ve got to play good football. And I think you should look forward to it.”

Some of the current 49ers clearly agree with Young. Earlier this week, Fred Warner said he expects to play all of Sunday’s game against the Rams and spoke about the right “mindset” needed to go on the field.

“You can’t tiptoe out there,” Warner said. “Talking about getting hurt and getting injured, the way you get hurt is if you go out there with the wrong mindset and you go half-speed and you’re not playing full-on like you should. So nothing changes.”

It’s not hard to see why Young is wary about taking games lightly when you look back through 49ers history. In the 1987 season, San Francisco dominated the NFL en route to a 13-2 record, clinching the top seed in the NFC. But on Jan. 9, 1988, the Minnesota Vikings came to Candlestick Park and stunned the 49ers, 36-24. The game went so poorly that then-head coach Bill Walsh benched Joe Montana for Young, giving the left-hander his first playoff action and kicking off a yearslong quarterback controversy.

“When [wide receiver] Anthony Carter and the Vikings came out, big plays, big game and before you know it, it’s over,” Young said. “You’re like, ‘Wait a second, no. We’re the No. 1 seed. What are you doing? You’re supposed to lay down.’ It just doesn’t happen. There is fear — there should be a little fear in taking a couple of weeks off.”

That fear will likely consume 49ers fans for the next few weeks, until kickoff on either Jan. 20 or 21 in the divisional round. But Young also thinks that the Niners have the right leaders in place — and is willing to contradict himself to say it.

“I think they’ll handle it well,” Young said. “When I say there’s fear when you take a couple of weeks off, that’s true. But our group is probably as well ready to take a week off as anybody.”