You cannot make a throw like he made in the game at the very end.
Six points at home? Against the Los Angeles Rams? It’s one of the bottom defenses in the league.
Yeah, that isn’t good for the San Francisco 49ers. Many will say quarterback Brock Purdy is horrible and needs to go, or the 49ers shouldn’t make a deal at all when they are allowed to offer an extension to their quarterback. If you’ve checked the theme park that is social media, you will see a lot of finger-pointing going the quarterback’s way. Many “told you so,” and “he is only good with weapons.”
Little known fact: If a quarterback doesn’t have his top running back, wide receiver, or left tackle, they will have problems more often than not. One thing is clear—and obvious—if you only score six points: There was offensive ineffectiveness shared by everyone on that side of the ball.
That said, Brock Purdy shouldn’t shoulder all the blame for Thursday Night’s loss. Why?
Brock Purdy didn’t drop a possible touchdown pass.
Brock Purdy didn’t collide with his running back to stop the momentum on a run.
Brock Purdy didn’t say he would stop playing in the third quarter and trotted to the locker room.
But Brock Purdy did throw an awful, awful interception, and that throw should impact his looming deal. You can’t have that throw from someone like Purdy at this point in their career. He’s not a rookie anymore. He has almost three years of starting experience and has been in situations similar to the one he found himself in on Thursday.
And now we know he can either win it or lose it. Sure, he can be depended on sometimes. And sometimes? Well, you see what happens.
With that, looking at the last franchise quarterback for the 49ers who made it to a Super Bowl is important.
In 2020, when the 49ers lost Super Bowl LIV to the Kansas City Chiefs, then-quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo uncorked a crucial deep throw for Emmanuel Sanders. The ball was overthrown. Had Garoppolo not overthrown the ball by two feet, the 49ers probably would have won.
You know how the story ends.
Unlike the overreactions on social media back then, Garoppolo shouldn’t have been benched, released, tarred, feathered, etc., much like the criticism you may have seen with Purdy. Garoppolo wasn’t the one who let WASP happen; that was Robert Saleh and his defense. Garoppolo wasn’t the one who missed getting his head taken off out of bounds; that was Bill Vinovich and the officiating crew. He wasn’t the reason the 49ers lost the game; the defensive collapse was, among other things.
But he could have been the reason the 49ers won. That’s why he was paid an estimated $17 million that season. When that play is called, he’s expected to make that throw in that situation.
That same logic now applies to Brock Purdy, Who has already demonstrated the opposite of Garoppolo. In Super Bowl LVIII against the Chiefs, Purdy took the team down the field and got them ahead. They might get a touchdown if the offensive line doesn’t fall apart. He might have won it sooner if his kicker had made the extra point during regulation.
Little on that game could you blame on Purdy. The team around him kept blowing it, and the freak injuries we, as fans, expected happened at the absolute worst time.
Purdy was/is on a rookie deal. That’s important. A deal for being the last pick in the 2022 draft. In that position, you aren’t even expected to start your first year, let alone the Super Bowl, yet Purdy demonstrated he could do so. Need more evidence? Look to the game before, the NFC Championship against the Detroit Lions. He showed again that he could rally the team and win. One bad half of football with a defense giving everything up, and Purdy turned around and won the game.
So there’s evidence Purdy can show up and dig his team out of a hole. There’s also evidence, like what we saw on Thursday night. That begs the question: with a large extension, which version of Brock Purdy do the 49ers get to develop further? The quarterback who came in for two seasons and set passing records while running Kyle Shanahan’s offense arguably better than anyone before it?
Or do we get the Purdy we saw in the Rams’ and Buffalo Bills‘ games, among others?
And really, that question is the difference between $55 million and the 49ers making a firm offer below that mark. It’s not “Don’t extend Purdy,” but “Do we pay him how much?”
Perhaps the 49ers make a respectable offer, but nothing that will break the bank. A good way of looking at it is Purdy is no longer demonstrating he can win in certain situations; he’s now expected to win in those situations. And the larger the contract, the greater the expectations are. And if you disagree with Northern California having ridiculous quarterback expectations, you haven’t been a fan for very long.
Also, a larger contract means other positions will need to be sacrificed to compensate for it. Would he win if that happened? If he had a full season without Brandon Aiyuk, Deebo Samuel, Christian McCaffrey, and others similar to 2024, could he take the 49ers to the playoffs?
For the record, winning with a good team around the quarterback isn’t easy. Just ask Caleb Williams of the Chicago Bears. Everyone was talking about all the weapons he had going into the 2024 season as a rookie, and he is struggling. You saw it firsthand a few weeks ago. So, it’s not as easy as analysts make it out to be.
And really, that’s the one criticism about Purdy we’ve heard a lot this year. If the 49ers lose their weapons, what happens? Every team needs weapons, and Purdy was dealt a horrible hand. It’s not a 7-2 offsuit, but it’s still not ideal. I hate to bring him into this, but Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs had a subpar batch of wide receivers last year, and he still found a way to get it done.
For the record, I’m not comparing Purdy to Mahomes. I’m just saying Purdy had a chance to silence criticism, showing that even without his top wide receiver, running back, etc., he’s still dangerous—at least against a bad defense in the Los Angeles Rams.
And he didn’t silence them. It just opened the door for more overreactions. But the contract—and how much—is not an overreaction.
Does the Thursday night’s ending merit benching or just moving on like you’re seeing some hint at? No. For someone to suggest the 49ers take what might have been the last game to keep them in the playoff hunt in a down season, where Purdy didn’t have much of an offense at all, and use that as the barometer while forgetting two seasons prior where he was arguably a top-5 quarterback, weapons or not, is just plain lazy.
Purdy has a much larger sample size than the proverbial flash-in-the-pan quarterbacks you’ve seen, such as Case Keenum and Trevor Siemian. The NFL had two years to figure Purdy out regardless of who he had to throw to and hand the ball off. They had no answer—and still may not. You know where Purdy can take you. You know he can be a decent quarterback.
The question is, is he worth the cash that many thought at the beginning of the season? That’s for you (and ultimately the 49ers’ front office) to decide. And that’s the difference between a long-term deal and entering free agency.
But really, Purdy is a good quarterback, and he should be paid. But how much might be the difference on his future with the 49ers.