In the 2022 NFC Championship Game, the San Francisco 49ers were at a serious disadvantage when their top two quarterbacks — starter Brock Purdy and backup Josh Johnson — were each injured in the game. By the end of the Philadelphia Eagles’ 31-7 win, 49ers head coach and offensive shot-caller Kyle Shanahan was stuck with running back Christian McCaffrey as his quarterback, because of the NFL’s rules regarding emergency third quarterbacks.
At the league meetings in Minneapolis on Monday, the NFL’s Competition Committee strove to make sure no other team would be in a similar situation by implementing a third quarterback rule. The league had a rule from 1991 through 2010 by which teams could dress a third quarterback without using an active roster spot on game, but for whatever reason, that went away in 2011.
