After going to the NFC Championship Game in Brock Purdy’s rookie season, then to the Super Bowl the following year, the San Francisco 49ers were perhaps the most injured team in the NFL in 2024. On offense alone, they lost Christian McCaffrey, Trent Williams, Brandon Aiyuk and first-round rookie Ricky Pearsall for extended stretches.
Purdy has come a long way from being the last pick of the 2022 NFL Draft, but the quarterback might have gone too far last season. He admits now he tried to make plays that weren’t there, as the 49ers’ injuries and losses piled up.
“When I was a rookie, I came in and I knew nothing but the quarterback (package of plays),” Purdy said from outside the locker room after practice last week. “It didn’t matter who was out on the field with me — I was just going through my progressions and ripping it. I was a machine.
“So this offseason, I was getting back to that standard of being hard on myself, being disciplined, and obviously not trying to do too much.”
In the midst of maybe the greatest offseason ever — a new baby girl to go with a new contract that will make even her granddaughter wealthy — Purdy knew that he, like a machine, needed a reboot. After a storybook first three seasons, he left the 49ers no real choice but to give him that five-year, $265 million extension in May.
Purdy’s fairy-tale rise up the depth chart was always predicated on keeping it simple. Know your reads, anticipate, react and fire. But last season, he forced it too often, and his completion percentage went down while his interception percentage went up.
“I wanted to get back to the Super Bowl in one play,” Purdy said.
So at different points this spring, Purdy threw passes to George Kittle, Pearsall and Jacob Cowing; worked with his personal throwing coach in Jacksonville; and had an “open conversation” with 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak and quarterbacks coach Mick Lombardi.
“We attacked my fundamentals, speeding up my feet, being better with my eyes and my mindset,” Purdy said. “Then we repped it out all summer and were intentional with it during training camp. Last year, I went into games thinking, ‘Hey, we’re down this receiver and this running back …’ and I wasn’t going through my progression the right way.
“I’m scrambling, rather than reading the play out for how it actually needs to be read out and trusting my eyes, trusting my fundamentals.”
Purdy has worked with throwing coach Will Hewlett since his last bowl game at Iowa State. This year, they focused on refining the little things.
“We were trying to get perfect ball placement on all the different layers of throws,” Hewlett said in a phone interview Saturday. “You need almost like a machine mentality … but you also want to be creative and be able to adapt to any situation.
“What makes him a difference-maker is how well and how quickly he sees things. For some guys, the game moves fast. I think it moves a lot slower for him.”
Brock Purdy
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Niners defensive coordinator Robert Saleh faced Purdy last season as head coach of the New York Jets and lost. He has long been impressed with the quarterback’s release and ball placement.
“The young man layers the ball as good as anybody in football,” Saleh said.
New backup quarterback Mac Jones has known Purdy since showing him around on a college tour at Alabama in 2017 (Purdy chose Iowa State). He loves to watch Purdy’s approach in meetings, as well as his connection with Kittle in practice.
“I feel like I’m on like ‘Madden’ or something watching Brock and George,” Jones said, “because they’re just in sync every time.”
Purdy hasn’t lost sight of the fact that quarterbacks still have to make plays born out of chaos, when progressions break down and pass rushers close in. So he has also worked on his mobility, throwing from different arm angles on the run.
“I’m somewhat of a stiff quarterback,” Purdy said. “That’s not a bad thing, but something that I always try to work on is my arm and mobility.”
“Obviously, he’s a precision passer, but I think he’s underrated in terms of his ability to create when the play’s not there,” Hewlett added.
In workouts with teammates, Purdy has focused on sharpening receivers’ timing. Pearsall became a standout at training camp, but there were times when Purdy had to pull the second-year receiver aside after plays to discuss steps, timing or route angles.
“Last year, Ricky was raw with his talent,” Purdy said. “He had it, but he also had to learn our system, our timing and where I’m throwing the ball. He’s got a lot of shimmy, which is great. We need that, specifically against man coverage to create separation, and we love that.
“But there were some times where he had to learn that he couldn’t take a couple more steps and then break out — I need you there now. I need to get the ball out now.”
Even on plays where Pearsall thought he was open, Purdy told him he needed him to get free quicker.
“He’s done a great job of competing and pushing through practices when he’s tired and getting the reps and building up the stamina,” Purdy said. “We’re going to definitely feed him the ball, and I can’t wait to do it.”
Purdy has no choice. Though McCaffrey is back and fully healthy, and Kittle is a matchup nightmare, the 49ers are thin again at wide receiver. Aiyuk is still recovering from a torn ACL suffered in October. He has started to run routes but is out for at least another month. Jauan Jennings has a nagging calf injury (though his nagging contract issue has been solved), but he returned to practice Monday and was listed as limited on Wednesday.
Cowing is on injured reserve with a hamstring injury, rookie Jordan Watkins (ankle) is also hurt and Demarcus Robinson is serving a three-game suspension. That leaves Pearsall, perhaps Jennings, and newcomers Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Russell Gage and Robbie Chosen.
Shanahan might lean on the running game early, but he and the players have a lot of confidence in Purdy. They always have, in some cases surprisingly so, given he showed up in 2022 as the last draft pick, buried on the depth chart.
“I usually don’t even go to (offseason workouts), but I was there for a few days and happened to see his first one,” Williams, the star left tackle, recalled of the spring of 2022. “I just watched how he commanded the huddle. I watched the throws. I watched how he went through his reads and how he processed everything.”
Williams went straight to Shanahan’s office afterward.
“I said, ‘I don’t know who that kid is, but y’all found one,’” Williams said. “He reminds me a lot of how Kirk Cousins came in (with Washington in 2012). Just a noticeable difference, like this cat can really play the quarterback position, you know?
“And then the pads came on, and the live bullets start flying, and Brock proved it every single step of the way. I also liked the moxie. I liked him standing up to Kyle once in a while. It’s pretty special when a seventh-round pick beats out veterans who they’re paying millions of dollars.”
Purdy said it wasn’t until a Week 13 win against the Miami Dolphins that season — when he came in for an injured Jimmy Garoppolo and threw two touchdown passes — that he felt he had proved himself.
“I threw my first touchdown, and then Trent was one of the first guys to celebrate with me,” Purdy said, smiling. “I feel like he had my back and knew that I had something special in me. So to me, that was the moment.”
Trent Williams, left, has been a believer in Purdy since the beginning. (Megan Briggs / Getty Images)
Purdy said he has leaned on and learned from team leaders, including Kittle, McCaffrey, Fred Warner and Nick Bosa.
“They understand what the end goal is and what it takes,” Purdy said. “Even last year when you go through some tough stuff, you’re out of the playoffs. … We have the right guys in this locker room to hold the standard. And obviously learn from last year, but keep pushing forward and don’t let it happen again.”
Purdy has become one of those leaders. Williams said he gets a kick whenever the quarterback yells at receivers.
“They’re not used to quarterbacks getting back to the third read, and maybe they’re not where they are supposed to be,” Williams said. “And this is early on. Mr. Irrelevant, no status off the jump. He had one of the most uphill battles that anybody can have, and he strided up that hill like it was flat ground.”
Purdy had an instant connection with Shanahan, who takes pride in the plays he draws up and wants them carried out.
“I came in and was just going through reads … and he saw that I was playing like a machine, and he loved that,” Purdy said. “He can call a pass play on first, second and third down multiple times and trust that I was gonna make the right decisions over and over again.”
Shanahan can be brutally honest at times. Purdy enjoys it. There’s a synergy there now, with each knowing what’s on the other’s mind before, during and after a play.
“Before I even explain what happened on a play, he knows what I was thinking,” Purdy said. “What my feet were doing, and why did I progress and get off this guy. … We’ve built this trust, and we’ve been through some things.”
The more things change, the more Purdy stays the same. It’s one reason Shanahan thinks he is such a good quarterback and leader.
“He’s been the same since Day 1,” the coach said. “You’d like to say that about a lot of people, but Brock is as much like that as, not only any football player I’ve met, but any person I’ve met.”
Will it be hard, though, to keep an underdog mentality when making, on average, more than $3 million per game?
Purdy sighed.
No.
“It’s part of the game, man,” he said. “Guys get paid. You have to go out and continue to perform. … It’s not thinking about, ‘Oh, I’m the highest-paid player on the team.’ It’s, ‘What’s my read? What’s the base defensive front and the safety structure?’
“Go through my process and execute and have that chip on my shoulder to compete every play, every down. … That’s what’s gotten me here to this point in my career, and I don’t want to lose sight of that.”
The chip is still there, but not to the point where Purdy can recite the eight quarterbacks drafted before him in 2022. (It’s an impossible request, mind you, as only four are on an NFL roster, none is a current starter and Malik Willis might be the best of the bunch.)
“I know a couple of the guys, but for me, man, it’s been more about being grateful for an opportunity in the NFL,” Purdy said. “I’m a faithful person, so seeing where God has allowed me to land and flourish. I’m more grateful than anything.
“Yeah, I was drafted last. The Mr. Irrelevant title I think about every once in a while, not in like a bad way, but, ‘Hey, man, you were drafted last, and this is where you’ve come from.’”
The machine has a backstory and a heart. And a trajectory.
“He’s the epitome of a Cinderella story,” Williams said. “To go from making a few hundred thousand a year to making $50 million a year? He is the guy for this team. He is the guy for this franchise. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”
(Top photo: Ian Maule / Getty Images)