The takes are flying after a subpar divisional playoff game from 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy. There’s no real defending the outing or spinning it as some titanic performance on a huge stage. He was inaccurate for most of the night and had a couple throws nearly intercepted that only helped underscore his sporadic ball placement. He made a couple nice throws on the game-winning drive, but beyond that he was not good. Despite that performance where he posted his fourth-worst passer rating of the year – Purdy is not a problem for San Francisco heading into the NFC championship game.
A huge part of the reason every Purdy mistake is bolded, highlighted and underlined is that every time he takes the field comes with an anticipation that the other shoe is going to drop on the final pick of the 2022 draft. There’s a line of thinking that says there is simply no way he can be a productive, winning QB, so obviously the rug is going to be ripped out from under him eventually.
Games on a national stage like Saturday’s 24-21 come-from-behind victory over the Green Bay Packers allow the sea of doubt that still churns behind Purdy’s career to become restless. “The haters,” as some might call them, get a chance to be loud.
Back here in reality where sweeping declarations aren’t made on one game and success through 25 career starts aren’t defined by one rough outing, Purdy is fine.
He had four games this year with passer ratings as bad or worse than the one he had Saturday. That means there were 12 games where he was better, and in most of those substantially better than he was Saturday night.
There was the mess against Cleveland in Week 6 where left tackle Trent Williams and wide receiver Deebo Samuel both got hurt early in the contest. Purdy had, at that point, his worst game as a pro. He went 12-for-27 for 125 yards with one touchdown and one interception. This game is notable because the rain clearly affected Purdy, and that might be the real problem. He may just struggle in the elements, which would make sense given some of the limitations of his physical tools.
Still, in Cleveland he put the 49ers in position to win late by driving them into field goal range. Kicker Jake Moody didn’t convert the 41-yard try, but Purdy was at his best that day in the game’s biggest spot.
He followed that up with another rough game in Minnesota where he threw a couple of late interceptions and posted an 81.5 passer rating, but still managed to complete 70 percent of his throws and average 9.1 yards per attempt. Mistakes like a Christian McCaffrey red zone fumble, a missed Moody field goal, and a truly baffling defensive play call by defensive coordinator at the end of the first half were bigger issues than Purdy in Minnesota.
Purdy was also very bad against the Ravens in Week 16 when he tossed a quartet of interceptions in a 33-19 blowout loss on Christmas. But QBs are allowed to have bad games, and the interesting thing will be how he looks against them a second time if the 49ers and Ravens wind up seeing each other in the Super Bowl.
Other than those three games he was far more often good than bad in his first full season as a starter. Immediately pointing to him as a problem after one (1) substandard postseason game is too reactionary. As Chris Biderman of the Candlestick Chronicles podcast points out, Tom Brady had 22 playoff games with worse passer ratings than Purdy had Saturday. That’s 45.8 percent of all of Brady’s playoff games! Nearly half of them! It turns out the NFL playoffs are hard, even for the GOAT. (This is not a comparison, it’s an illustration of how difficult it is to be excellent every single night in the NFL playoffs).
The 49ers may not win the Super Bowl this year. They may not even make it. But the reaction to Purdy’s performance in the divisional playoffs has gone off the rails. All year the discourse revolved around how the 49ers’ offense is successful for a million reasons besides the QB. McCaffrey is still there. So are Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle. Trent Williams is still lining up at left tackle. Deebo Samuel is TBD with a shoulder injury.
Still, we know Purdy can operate the 49ers’ offense at a high level regardless of how much of it is on him. We’ve seen him do it all year, and we’ve seen him do it before and after he had games worse than the one he had Saturday night. History says we’re more likely to see Purdy bounce back in the NFC championship than we are to see him stumble again.
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