For the second time in 11 weeks, the San Fransisco 49ers are pivoting at quarterback. Trey Lance gave way for Jimmy Garoppolo. Now Garoppolo, replete with a 7-3 record as starter and a broken foot that will cost him the rest of the 2022 season, will give way to Brock Purdy.
Purdy, the final selection of the 2022 NFL Draft, is now the center of the 49ers offense. But while starting a seventh-round rookie is anything but ideal, it’s reasonable to think the 49ers can still claim the NFC West title, make waves through the playoffs, and even punch their way into Super Bowl 57.
I wrote last week about how San Francisco is built specifically to minimize the defects of a shaky quarterback. For Lance it was the boom/bust capabilities of an FCS stud who was rarely used as a dropback passer his rookie season. For Garoppolo, it was about reducing the opportunities he had to bury the team under his mistakes. Now Purdy will operate under Kyle Shanahan’s influence and get the best of both those worlds.
Week 13 wasn’t Purdy’s NFL debut, but it was his best performance as a pro to date — not a difficult task, considering his other meaningful appearance before Sunday saw him complete four of nine passes and throw an interception in mop-up duty in a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. The Purdy we saw against the Miami Dolphins in a showdown against one of the AFC’s top teams blew that guy away. In fact, he blew MVP candidate Tua Tagovailoa away:
Purdy finished his day by completing 25 of 37 passes for 210 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. San Francisco’s win was partially about his competence behind center, but much more closely related to its defense haranguing Tagovailoa into his worst performance of 2022. And while that may make an overwhelmed rookie easy to shrug off on a day where the Dolphins weren’t expecting him, it’s the exact reason why the Niners can’t be dismissed as Super Bowl contenders, even with the football equivalent of a lottery scratcher at quarterback.
Let’s talk about why.
Purdy's blocking and skill players will do the heavy lifting for him
One stat that absolutely stands out in the stat sheet above is Purdy’s average target depth. The average NFL quarterback in 2022 throws the ball roughly 7.6 yards downfield. Jimmy Garoppolo clocked in at 30th among 35 qualified passers at 6.8 yards coming into Week 13 and Matt Ryan was last at 5.9 yards.
Purdy, operating in an offense that rewarded him for low risk passes, had an average target depth of 5.6 yards beyond the line of scrimmage — a number the NFL officially has at an even-lower 5.3. His passing chart shows 27 of his 37 attempts traveled six yards downfield or fewer. Roughly one quarter of his throws failed to breach the line where the ball had been spotted moments earlier.
The Niners used short passes to create space for his longer attempts. He completed five of eight throws that went at least 10 yards. While that eventually resulted in his one interception — albeit on fourth-and-four, so it doesn’t really count — he averaged an efficient 8.6 yards per pass on those tosses. Here he is, standing up against the blitz on third down and sustaining a drive that turned a 10-10 game into a 17-10 lead at halftime.
Purdy didn’t have to cycle through his target list under pressure that often in an offense designed to get the ball out of his hands quickly (his 2.67 seconds in the pocket was the seventh-lowest number in Week 13). That seems like the kind of strategy Bill Belichick would use to pump up a young, overwhelmed quarterback. But it’s also the strategy Shanahan used for his old, brain-fart liable quarterback. Garoppolo averaged 2.66 seconds per throw coming into Week 13.
That works because San Francisco is specially equipped to pump up mistake-prone quarterbacks with limited capabilities deep. 2022 marks the fifth straight season the 49ers lead the league in yards after catch. Purdy’s average completion traveled 3.5 yards downfield but the average amount of yards gained per catch was a healthy 8.4 because of guys like George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and Christian McCaffrey.
That’s something San Francisco can lean on through the end of the regular season as Purdy grows into his role. Between those playmakers, an offensive line that ranks second in the league in pressure rate allowed (16.1 percent) and fifth in sacks allowed (19 before Sunday) and a tailback stable loaded with Shanahan’s never-ending string of underappreciated young runners, the Niners’ rookie quarterback has plenty of help on which he can rely.
But he’s going to struggle. Opponents are going to churn his game tape and find ways to baffle him. And that’s alright, because …
The 49ers defense is here to win in the mud
Tua Tagovailoa, before Week 13, was the NFL’s most efficient quarterback. On Sunday, the 49ers bullied him into his first three-turnover day of 2022 and nearly doubled his interception total for the year. His 79.7 passer rating was his worst of the season in any game he’s finished.
While regression was always coming for a player who’d been historically efficient to start the season, the bigger factor was a defense that allowed Tyreek Hill to feast and Trent Sherfield to catch a game-opening 75-yard touchdown, but that’s about it. The Dolphins were 0-7 on third down despite converting nearly 41 percent of those opportunities before Week 13. Tagovailoa on those downs?
Five passes, zero completions, two sacks, -18 yards and six punts.
A revamped secondary has created more opportunities for defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans to send extra rushers on passing downs. That worked to perfection in Week 13, but San Francisco can also use its deep well of linemen and edge rushers to hassle quarterbacks from a four-man set. Ryans’ blitz rate of 22.3 percent ranks only 20th in the NFL but his pressure rate of 24.2 percent is eighth, as was the team’s 33 sacks through 11 games.
The Niners had a 90-plus minute shutout streak broken Sunday. They also had a string of four straight games without giving up a point in the second half snapped. But Miami had four times as many turnovers than touchdowns after halftime. San Francisco, in the last 150 minutes of the third and fourth quarters of its games, has given up exactly seven points.
That turned a 17-10 lead into a 33-17 win despite Purdy entrenched behind center. San Francisco has the horses to turn a Cinderella quarterback back into a bullied stepsister and can crush you with an array or blitzes or by dropping seven guys into coverage and counting down the seconds until four separate vectors converge on the pocket.
Asking a seventh-round rookie to step into an offense and play even average football is a big ask, but lifting up passers is Kyle Shanahan’s whole deal. If he can’t make magic with Purdy, there’s still a chance those short passes and runs can pair with a defense that plays like a poked-at hornets’ next to turn the NFC side on the playoffs into Iowa-Wisconsin Big Ten glory days cosplay.
Which is to say, it may not be pretty — with the exception of bursts of brilliance from guys like McCaffrey and Samuel — but the 49ers are built to survive injury to their top two quarterbacks. Now we wait and see if Purdy can be the below-average savior this team needs to continue on its path to the postseason.
