Camp opened Sunday in Santa Clara and the headline wasn't a position battle or an injury scare, it was chemistry. Brock Purdy carved up the defense in team drills, completing 10 of 12 passes, and the shot that turned heads was a deep ball down the left sideline to Mike Evans that beat cornerback Deommodore Lenoir clean. One rep in July means basically nothing on its own. But it's exactly the kind of connection this 49ers offense needed to see immediately, because the front office bet big to make it happen.
Evans is in San Francisco because the 49ers went out and paid for him in March, ending a 12-year run in Tampa Bay that included a Super Bowl ring and a Hall of Fame trajectory. The deal is worth up to $60.4 million over three years, but the real number that matters is the structure: it's essentially a one-year, $14.3 million fully guaranteed contract with team options after that, giving San Francisco an easy out if the fit doesn't work. Translation: Evans has one year to prove he's still a true No. 1, and Sunday's rep was a decent first exhibit.
Purdy, for his part, is playing on a fresh five-year, $265 million extension that made him one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in football, with a 2026 cap number north of $23.7 million. That security matters after a rough 2025 that saw a nagging turf toe injury limit him to just nine starts. Even in that abbreviated season he threw 20 touchdowns against 10 picks and still finished as the QB2 in fantasy points per game at 22.7, which tells you the talent and the offense were never the problem. Health was.
That's the whole story for fantasy purposes. A healthy Purdy with a full season of reps was already a QB1 in disguise, and now he's got a receiver room that looks completely different than the one that finished 2025. Evans slots in as the clear alpha target, Ricky Pearsall is the presumptive WR2 opposite him, and the 49ers also brought in Christian Kirk on a one-year, $6 million deal after his stint in Houston, plus rookie De'Zhaun Stribling as a developmental piece. Add in Christian McCaffrey and George Kittle still soaking up touches, and Purdy suddenly has more proven weapons than he's had in years.
For drafters, Purdy currently sits in low-end QB1 territory on most boards, and that feels light given the per-game production he flashed even through injury. If camp reports keep trending toward him and Evans building real rapport, expect his ADP to creep up before Labor Day. He's the kind of late-round QB1 bet that can pay off if you're punting the position early and scooping value once the QB run happens.
Evans himself is the more interesting fantasy puzzle. He's 32, changing offenses and quarterbacks for the first time in his career, and walking into a run-heavy scheme built around McCaffrey. But he's also a walking touchdown machine who topped 1,000 receiving yards in every single season of his career before this one, and a vertical, boundary-winning route runner is exactly what Purdy's deep-ball accuracy rewards. Treat him as a high-upside WR2 with WR1 weeks, especially in any format that leans on touchdown equity.
There's a betting angle here too. San Francisco's win total and NFC West odds assume this passing game takes a real step forward, and Purdy's MVP and passing yardage props will move throughout camp based on exactly these kinds of reports. If the Evans connection keeps showing up on the practice tape, don't be surprised if the market starts pricing in a bounce-back 49ers offense before the preseason even kicks off. Worth watching how Kirk and Pearsall settle into the pecking order behind Evans, because whoever wins that WR2 job is going to have real weekly fantasy relevance in an offense that should score plenty.