Instead of belaboring the obvious, that the San Francisco 49ers are struggling because they are disproportionately dependent on a handful of special veteran skill-position players who also tend to accumulate frequent traveler miles on the injury report, let’s focus on something we have missed about this team’s yearly trip into the abyss that causes us to wonder whether the run is over. (Hint: it’s not!)
Brock Purdy has been playing well over a stretch of time in which he hasn’t had the ultimate quarterback security blanket in Christian McCaffrey. In Week 3, he was also without George Kittle, whose presence is both a physical and mathematical game-changer on every down, that allows the 49ers to play against defenses of their choosing. And, after Kyle Shanahan played Purdy during meaningless snaps this offseason, also without his best skill-position players, minus his starting offensive line and without Shanahan calling the plays, it was clear he wanted to see how a quarterback in line to receive $60 million a year would play during the lean years when McCaffrey, Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Kyle Juszczyk and Trent Willliams have phased out of the picture.
The answer Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams—with a limited cast and a version of Brandon Aiyuk that is nowhere near up to speed after an offseason holdout—was 292 passing yards and three touchdowns in a 27–24 loss. On the season, Purdy has just one interception and one game with a completion percentage under 70. Against the Rams, six of his eight incompletions were drops. He would have had a completion percentage above 90 otherwise. Purdy came into this week second in completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) and was fourth this week behind only Justin Fields, Jalen Hurts and Aaron Rodgers. He came into this week fourth in down-by-down success rate and seventh in total EPA.
Purdy’s total expected points added Sunday was 19.2. By comparison, Matthew Stafford on the other sideline logged an 8.3. Stafford was in a strikingly similar position to Purdy, operating a high-powered offense without a large number of stalwart players (notably Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua).
Down the stretch Sunday, Purdy led his team into field goal position and kicker Jake Moody missed. He essentially placed a ball into the hands of Ronnie Bell on a precision pass that would have swung the game with roughly a minute to play in the fourth quarter, and the ball was dropped. If one paused the broadcast at just the perfect time, you could catch Shanahan, arms raised upright in a FIELD GOAL GOOD signal before he likely spiked any and all expendable materials in his hands to the turf.
While the 49ers are in no hurry to end what has been one of the great quarterbacking bargains of this millennium, I would guess they are expecting to sign Purdy to a long-term deal and have always expected to. I also believe that it’s weeks like this that, despite suffering a loss and dipping below .500, are bolstering their confidence in an idea that the general public still cannot wrap their heads around for some strange reason.
This is largely an argument of style over substance. It’s quite easy to put on a performative, disdainful tone and ask whether Purdy is worth $60 million (which, if he were to sign a deal and expect to leapfrog the current leader in average per year salary, Dak Prescott, would be in the neighborhood of what Purdy would earn). It’s quite another to overlay Purdy atop the rest of the NFL and say that he is less deserving of a market-resetting contract than other quarterbacks who have also reset the market before him.
The money is immaterial. The question is whether the 49ers should keep him. If they decide to do so, they are already fairly certain what it would cost. The Jacksonville Jaguars, Cincinnati Bengals, Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions, Miami Dolphins and Los Angeles Chargers have all recently done quarterback deals that we’ve (mostly) viewed as obvious and inevitable. We’ve withheld Purdy from that conversation based on this idea that he is simply a cog in a system surrounded by Ferrari parts.
Here’s a fun thought: There is, perhaps, no better defensive coordinator over the first three weeks of this season than Brian Flores in Minnesota. He is absolutely haunting quarterbacks this year and is the untold story of the Vikings’ 2024 campaign. Against Flores, Purdy had a -1 EPA, completed 77% of his passes, threw one touchdown and one interception.
The other quarterbacks who faced Flores?
• C.J. Stroud: -12 EPA, 64% completion rate, one touchdown, two interceptions.
• Daniel Jones: -22(!) EPA, 52% completion rate, zero touchdowns, two interceptions.
One of these quarterbacks is almost assuredly going to reset the QB market one day and you’d be laughed out of the room to suggest otherwise. Another got an extension recently that put him within $5 million per season of Patrick Mahomes. The merits of that extension were certainly debatable (and debated) but reflect the reality of the position, how many true quality starters exist and, to me, how much better off the 49ers are with someone like Purdy.
Sure, the 49ers have lost two games, but Shanahan and the team have always been smart enough to know that wins and losses are not quarterback-related statistics. The meaningful progress is evident. The quarterback statistics—and performances—that do matter have not blown Purdy off course from signing a record-setting contract at some point in the near future.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Brock Purdy Is Proving He Deserves a Market-Setting Contract.
