One reason the San Francisco 49ers are cooking on offense with quarterback Brock Purdy is the second-year man’s performance against the blitz this season. Per Sports Info Solutions, Purdy has faced five or more pass-rushers this season on 63 of his dropbacks. He’s completed 35 of 57 passes against blitzes for 426 yards, 205 air yards, five touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 113.6.
That stands out in a 49ers offense that can attack defenses with both the run and the pass at all levels of the field, and Purdy isn’t just checking down when he gets pressured with blitzes. He’s completed five of nine passes of 15 or more air yards against the blitz for 139 yards, 92 air yards, two touchdowns, and a passer rating of 140.0 — that’s the best in the NFL among qualifying quarterbacks (at least five attempts).
This 27-yard touchdown pass to Deebo Samuel against the New York Giants’ overload blitz in Week 3 is about as good as it gets.
However, Purdy has not seen anything like the Minnesota Vikings’ blitz packages he’ll see on Monday Night Football. The Vikings, under defensive coordinator Brian Flores, are blitzing this season at an insanely high rate — 57.9%, and the Patriots are second at 43.4%. But the Vikings’ pressure rate of 23.6% is decidedly middle of the pack.
“I see a team that causes a lot of issues,” Kyle Shanahan said Thursday about what he sees in Minnesota’s defense. “I mean, they blitz more than anyone in the league. You can never just relax and just call a play or run a play because there’s always a thousand things that can go wrong just because of the threat of what they do in any situation. So they’re on you a lot with that. They get you to make mistakes in that way. I mean, you look at the two games that they won it’s because they created a turnover with those pressures where they didn’t have a guy to block a guy. They didn’t have a hot throw. The quarterback fumbles it and they return two for touchdowns there in the second half. That’s got both of their wins. So, they’re a team that challenges you schematically and everything and when they do that, you’ve got to be on it.”
The problem for Purdy could be how Flores changes his coverages against the snap on those pressure looks. Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs has had serious issues with the deep ball this season, and Flores in particular tied him in knots in Week 5.
“I thought we took a step in a positive direction,” Mahomes said, when asked about the deep passes against the Vikings. “That’s a hard scheme to go against, the amount of pressure, the amount of dropping out, the Cover-0. I thought the young guys did a good job of being in the right spot at the right time. I think selfishly for myself, if I could hit some of those deep shots that when we did get the opportunities.”
When Mahomes talked about the Cover-0, he may have been thinking about this deep incompletion to Travis Kelce with 11:45 left in the first quarter. The Vikings showed Cover-0 pre-snap, and shifted to Cover-3 post-snap. The Vikings brought a six-man rush. Mahomes turned his back for the play fake to running back Isiah Pacheco, and when he turned back around, he saw a completely different coverage. Mahomes still had Kelce one-on-one with safety Cameron Bynum, and you can understand why he’d take that shot 10 out of 10 times. Problem was, Bynum made a great play, and that was another shot the Chiefs didn’t make.
In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys get into why Purdy has been so good against the blitz this season, and what Flores might be dialing up for that to not be the case in Week 7.
You can watch this week’s full “Xs and Os” video, featuring all of Week 7’s biggest matchups, right here:
You can also listen and subscribe to the “Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…
…and on Apple Podcasts.
