Brock Purdy, a system quarterback? With the 49ers' weapons on the verge of missing games, he now has a great opportunity to refute
The NFL microscope isn't fair. Before we get into the San Francisco 49ers' injury issue (which is naturally going to put enormous pressure on quarterback Brock Purdy), we need to be realistic about how some budding stars are digested by their critics.
For some, expectations, pressure and blame tend to loom larger. And one could argue that among the league’s successful young quarterbacks, it’s been larger for Purdy. Among his peers, he often seems the quickest to be criticized, doubted, dismissed or have his accomplishments reduced to being the byproduct of someone or something else. Repeatedly, his wins or statistics have been framed as the creation of head coach Kyle Shanahan, or focused through the greatness or dominance of Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, George Kittle and others.
The driving force behind this perception isn’t well disguised, either. Purdy isn’t a big-time player when it comes to statistical ideals at the quarterback position. His arm strength isn’t among the league’s best, and his creativity lags behind the off-frame prodigies who can turn a wrong play into a right result. And of course, Purdy was selected with the last pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, leading to a subliminal and inaccurate perception that Purdy is overperforming as a player, rather than a more reasonable assessment that NFL teams simply fell short in their evaluations of him.
In simple terms, this is how Purdy repeatedly gets the stubborn label of “system quarterback”: through a layered process that focuses on what he can’t do or hasn’t done, while turning his accomplishments into the fluke of his surroundings. Again, it’s a microscope that isn’t fair. But his critics don’t care, either. Until Purdy does something to stand out beyond the talent on the 49ers’ roster and coaching structure, the doubts, snubs and firings will continue.
All of this brings us to this moment in the 2024 NFL season, a situation that provides Purdy with the opportunity to begin backing his doubters into a tight corner of their own making. The third-year quarterback whose high level of play has often been dismissed as someone else's work Now he finds himself more alone than ever in his career. Wide receiver Deebo Samuel? Out for weeks with a calf strain. Running back Christian McCaffrey? Out potentially for months with Achilles tendinitis. Even tight end George Kittle is suddenly nursing a hamstring injury and missing practice this week, raising some questions about his availability for Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Rams.
The most accurate description for any NFL team losing that much offensive talent in one fell swoop: disaster. For Purdy, it's both an opportunity and a challenge. Because more than ever, the offensive burden falls on him now. After all, it's become an accepted thesis that the impact of Shannan's scheme isn't the same without Samuel. either McCaffrey. But without both? It's like Shanahan had planned a steak and potatoes dinner and now suddenly had no steak and no potatoes.
Naturally, the head coach and his quarterback have to move forward anyway, taking advantage of the silver lining that’s been presented: One way or another, the 49ers are going to spend a sustained amount of time figuring out whether Purdy has the ability to single-handedly elevate and possibly even carry San Francisco. And in the process, they’ll provide some sort of demonstrable evidence to prove or disprove the lingering criticisms about whether Purdy is a product of Shanhan’s system or the root that sustains it.
It also comes at a crucial time, as Purdy is set to enter negotiations for a contract extension in the offseason. As it stands, he has one extremely cheap year left on his four-year rookie deal, which will pay him just over $1.1 million in 2025. Over the summer, organizational sources repeatedly indicated to Yahoo Sports that Shanahan had already committed to extending Purdy’s contract with an elite-level quarterback deal. But the context for that happening was also based on the presumption that the 49ers’ offense would remain healthy and Purdy would continue to prove how well he fit into it. What no one could have predicted is what’s happening now: an injury crossroads that will give Shanahan a new piece of information. Specifically, a window into how Purdy reacts to the challenge of implementing Shanahan’s orders with a smaller cast of characters.
Will Purdy’s performance affect his potential contract extension? In one sense, no, because it’s been pretty clear for more than a year that Shanahan is comfortable teaming up with Purdy long-term. But in another sense, Purdy could certainly affect exactly where that extension might go. If he struggles significantly, it could give the 49ers room to tweak how far they’re willing to go beyond the $50 million per season mark. Conversely, if Purdy continues to play at a high level despite losses at the skill position, he’ll almost certainly become the highest-paid player in the league (at more than $60 million per season) when the two sides come to an agreement.
Of course, that’s just the economic component. I think there’s another very important advantage at play here as well. And that’s Purdy’s desire to be seen as one of the best, most consistently dominant quarterbacks in the league. He expressed that verbally more than once in the offseason, and when I visited him in July, he told me something interesting about his reasoning for saying out loud that he wanted to be a dominant player: He wanted his teammates and people in the 49ers organization to recognize it … and he wanted the words to come out of his own mouth.
In effect, he was announcing his intention to be great. Which may sound a little arrogant, but it’s a bridge that virtually every elite quarterback crosses. Because at some point, you have to have the courage to lead with verbal intentions to be great, while also knowing that those proclamations can never be retracted. You’re burning your bridges, and there’s no turning back. The only way forward is toward what you want — and if you fail, you fail.
“The most important thing is that this organization, my teammates, my coaches and the people here hear it,” Purdy told me in July. “That everyone hears it, that’s what matters. Because the world is going to say this or that about you. But for me, the people that I go to war with in this organization, I think it’s important that they hear me say what my goals are, my expectations are and what my standard is.”
Well, now it’s onto the next step. You can say it, but you have to be it in the most critical moments. And there’s no better way to be it than by elevating your level of play when the organization needs you most. For the 1-1 49ers, that time is now. It’s this week against the Rams and every week going forward. In front of critics who have always expected the least and given the least credit, and under a microscope that has no interest in fairness.
More than at any other point in his young career, Purdy has the chance to present a rebuttal. And if you've been listening during the preseason, he's been preparing for this closing argument for a long, long time.
