49ers Film Room: What kind of quarterback is Brock Purdy? Part 2 - the game manager label

In part 2 of this series, we'll breakdown the game manager narrative and dive into the why it's said and how it's necessarily a bad thing.

In part 1, I wrote that despite Purdy’s MVP candidacy taking a hit (he can still win it as he is a nominee), he was very much a quarterback who came in and took over an offense from Jimmy Garoppolo and elevated it to new heights in 2023. Despite being a candidate for NFL MVP, he was bound to somewhat come back down to earth. The question was how would that unfold and how would he answer a minor slump. 

The answer to the question “what kind of quarterback is he?” would be answered by how he responded to adversity and challenges over the course of 17 games. We’ve caught glimpses of the answers dating back to week 13 of 2022.

But why do so many of his detractors call him a “game manager” and a “system quarterback?”  Why do so many of his staunchest supporters among the fan base, and to a certain extent the backup/practice squad quarterback content creator genre, think he's not, that he’s really only a game changer/playmaker?

The truth is, he IS a game manager, but not in the pejorative, negative way that it’s always portrayed as by both sides. He is not nearly as bad as his detractors say he is. He is also not as good as his biggest supporters claim either, certainly not in the same discussion as Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson or Joe Burrow.

But for Shanahan’s offense to function, it needs a blend of all three of those quarterback genotypes (game manager/system quarterback, game changer, and play maker) and Purdy has made throws and plays that show he can hang with those quarterbacks if he has the chance.

His predecessor? He was the arsonist putting out his own fires. Jimmy Garoppolo was a barely functioning, game-managing quarterback who really was just a passenger on the bus. He had the ball taken out of his hands in the 2019 divisional round after a dropped interception by Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks. The next week, he threw the ball 8 times for 77 yards in a 37-20 win in the NFC Championship game.

His injuries held the team back and derailed the covid season. His late season injuries in 2021 likely derailed that year too in the NFC Championship Game in Los Angeles. This isn’t meant to pile on Jimmy, but it’s rather a statement of fact of what happened and why the 49ers moved on.

Garoppolo was a gamer, tough as nails, sacrificing his health and putting his body on the line for the good of the team when he didn’t have to. And he came back in 2022 to do the same. But injuries derailed his season again. Fortunately, the 49ers had reinforced their roster with Christian McCaffrey that season.

Despite that, Brock came in and shattered expectations for what a quarterback is supposed to look like in Shanahan’s offense and Shanahan hasn’t had this kind of efficiency since Matt Ryan’s MVP season in Atlanta. I wrote last summer that the offense actually received its boost from Christian McCaffrey. But Purdy stepped in for an injured Garoppolo and just started making throws that Jimmy couldn’t or wouldn’t.

Fast forward to the week after the NFC Championship against Detroit. Late last week, Jed York went so far as to claim that Shanahan said Purdy was the best quarterback of the 3 on the roster in preseason in 2022 and Shanahan confirmed it at Super Bowl media night that he in fact thought that he was the best quarterback on the roster…in 2022. 2023 started how 2022 started with Purdy. And it’s ending the way 2022 should’ve ended.

So what is Purdy? Is he just a game manager and system quarterback? Is he more than that? To put it simply, he is whatever you say he is.

The game manager label

Game managers are quarterbacks that are considered to be just guys who manage the game in a run-heavy offense and throw passes that are predominantly an extension of the running game. A dink and dunker was the common trope tossed around about him in the 2023 offseason.

The most commonly assumed reason why Shanahan quarterbacks outside Matt Ryan are viewed as game managers are because of the heavy reliance on play action. Garoppolo, across all passing snaps with the 49ers, had a 28.5% play action rate, reaching 33% play action in 2019. This year, Purdy and the 49ers are throwing play action at a rate of just 22%.

It’s understandable why the label for Shanahan quarterbacks exists. This designed boot rollout from the 2022 wildcard playoff game against Seattle is a good example of why. Shanahan’s ability to undress a defense’s coverage rules gives his quarterbacks a distinct advantage over most quarterbacks in the league.

This is a 5-yard pass Deebo turns into a 74 yard touchdown. After spamming this strong side wide zone run game concept all game at the Seahawks defense, the play call gets safety Ryan Neal to chase the cutback, but he also has coverage responsibility on the #4 receiver or first crosser. 

But with Neal aggressively chasing a potential cutback on a running play that he would be responsible for, Deebo is able to get open in the space where the weak safety vacated to come downhill before Purdy tosses it out to him.

Other throws are even easier and require Purdy to make a pre-snap read to throw or hand-off on Shanahan’s under center run-pass option plays. By tagging the RPO to the backside of the run concept, the quarterback can survey the defense pre-snap and determine if throwing the quick slant is the best option.

In this play from 2023 week 3, the 49ers have “duo” called as the run concept with a dart alert slant to be thrown versus an advantageous alignment. The determination is made by checking for the alignment of the WILL linebacker. If the WILL is inside the formation off the ball, this is the most advantageous “look” for the offense to throw the slant. Purdy just has to make a throw and Deebo does the rest.

But this doesn’t mean the quarterback can’t be a playmaker on play action passes. In week 12 in Seattle on Thanksgiving night, Purdy’s throw with 7:59 left in the fourth quarter all but ensured the 49ers would be eating turkey legs on the Seattle logo at Lumen Field when he put the dagger, literally and figuratively, into the Seahawks with his touchdown throw over the middle to Brandon Aiyuk.

After the game, head coach Kyle Shanahan had this to say [edited for clarity]:

“I couldn't believe he was throwing it. The zone coverage guys were so deep and  usually you can check it down  right underneath them and get about 12 but Brock thought he could drop it in  over the guy. It was just a hell of a throw and had perfect touch. [Purdy] got it over him. I think it was Diggs and it was a big play that sealed it. He does that pretty consistently. He’s always always trying to get that one in. Very rarely does he check it down and you tell him he missed the deep one. He proved to us while the ball was in the air that  it was the right decision. We're all holding our breath as soon as he lets it go because the guy was so deep but Brock’s got some touch and he was able to throw it over him. We took the safety out of there with a so he knew if he could get it over him there was no one else left and he made the throw.”

The play concept itself was “dagger” off of play action, currently one of Shanahan’s preferred play action and non-play action pass calls for Purdy. It’s a two-man route concept with a deep crossing route and deep in-breaking route behind it. The play itself is primarily a cover-2/split safety coverage beater and secondarily can be a single high safety coverage (cover-1 and cover-3) beater depending on the variants.

Seahawks are in cover-3 “buzz” here and actually have the play pretty well defended post snap. There's nothing underneath to occupy the safety buzzing down as the hook defender so the dagger is initially taken away. The deep crosser from Kittle is capped by the deep safety and with Purdy’s eye manipulation, he is able to hold the safety outside the opposite hash while Aiyuk breaks in on the dig route.

The underneath coverage defenders sink to good depth and make the dagger route a bad option but Purdy sees the open field ahead of Aiyuk and tosses the pass up the hash to the open space for Aiyuk to run to it. He placed the ball perfectly between four defenders, allowing Aiyuk to catch it and quickly get into the end zone.

The idea that Purdy is a game manager largely stems from the idea that he’s the beneficiary of the talent around him, that those guys carry the load for him, and that he’s merely just a passenger on the bus. He doesn’t have to push the ball downfield, doesn’t have a lot of turnovers, and doesn’t take a lot of sacks. And he doesn’t have the arm to be viewed as a truly elite, special talent.

All of that is true about him. For good reason. Per NFL NextGenStats in 2022, Purdy ranked 35th out of 40 in intended air yards per pass attempt (Garoppolo ranked 33rd) at 6.7 IAY/PA and 20th in completed air yards (CAY) per pass attempt at 5.9 CAY/PA. He was 15th in yards after the catch as a percentage of passing yards at 51% and 6th in yards after the catch per completion (YAC/cmp) in 2022 among passers with at least 50 attempts (at the same spreadsheet link).

To further illustrate the game manager label, the 49ers ranked 27th in pass attempts per game in 2022 and 32nd pass attempts per game in 2023. To illustrate this comparison, the 2011 and 2012 49ers, through Alex Smith’s starts, ranked 31st both seasons (2012 through week 10). Smith is widely considered the quintessential game manager.

But the label is used as a pejorative for many quarterbacks and it’s a label that honestly should have been deleted from the lexicon of NFL discourse online about Purdy very early in the 2023 season. Yes, they throw at the lowest rate per game in the NFL. But there’s context missing there.

The 49ers in the second half of games are throwing the ball at the 2nd lowest rate, (31st) in the third and fourth quarters. In the fourth quarter, they rank 30th in total pass attempts. This is due to leading late in games when throwing rate goes down and running the ball is used to grind down the clock and end the game.

He led the NFL this season in yards after the catch per completion at 6.7 YAC/cmp. But that doesn’t tell the whole story either. 48% of his passing yards this season came after the catch, 26th in the NFL among quarterbacks with at least 50 pass attempts. In 2023, he ranked 14th in IAY/PA but 4th in CAY/PA. A dink and dunker game manager? He is not one.

Shanahan’s comments at the Super Bowl media night this week illustrate a different point of view about the “game manager” label.

“I don’t get how being a system quarterback and a game manager is a negative. The job of a quarterback is to manage the game. And it is to run the system. The system is what you run all week. That’s what the O-line works on, that’s what your five eligibles work on, that’s everything. And your quarterback, if you want to be great, you better be able to run that system and you better be able to manage the game. But if you want to stay in that position, no system is going to be perfect. There’s going to be times when you have no answers. And if you want to stay there, you better make some plays. And that’s how you become a consistent quarterback: you’re a game manager, you can run the system right, and you can make plays. And if you don’t have those three things, it’s a matter of time. One game, two games, two years, it’s a matter of time. But Brock does all three of those things, so I don’t get what we’re talking about.”

Managing the game and making plays go hand in hand. And Brock showed early on, as soon as he took over as the starter, that he could manage the game and make plays when needed. And in part three, we’ll take a look at Brock the playmaker.