49ers film room: Why the 49ers should pay Brock Purdy top dollar
Is Brock Purdy worth a $60 million per year deal? What the film and data says about why they should.
The San Francisco 49ers’ 2024 season ended in disappointment, mirroring their 2020 struggles with key injuries and a playoff miss. Star quarterback Brock Purdy faced inconsistency amid injuries to key players like Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, Trent Williams, and Brandon Aiyuk, while the defense regressed.
The team finished 6-11, sparking debates about Purdy’s role: is he a product of Kyle Shanahan’s system or a legitimate franchise quarterback? Purdy’s 2023 league-leading metrics contrasted with his 2024 struggles, particularly in clutch moments, raising questions about his ability to elevate the team independently of a strong supporting cast.
Purdy’s looming contract extension presents a dilemma for the 49ers. With the quarterback market resetting annually, Purdy’s camp is reportedly seeking $55–60 million per year, a significant portion of the salary cap. General Manager John Lynch must decide whether to overpay for continuity or risk regression with a cheaper alternative. Reportedly, the 49ers starting offer is $45 million per year.
Purdy’s leverage is bolstered by the lack of viable replacements and the team’s history of quarterback instability. The decision will shape the 49ers’ future, as they weigh Purdy’s potential against the risk of committing to a quarterback whose ceiling may be “very good, not elite.” The outcome will also reflect broader NFL trends in valuing system-driven production versus traditional quarterback intangibles.
But is Brock Purdy worth a $60 million per year deal? Should the 49ers pay that if they feel he’s worth that contract? It depends who you ask.
The case for paying Purdy - what the film and data show
The case for paying him is simple. He’s shown enough in 2.5 seasons that he can competently lead the offense, make the right throws on time and accurately with anticipation, and can play out of structure when the play breaks down (perhaps the most important trait he has). Yes, he has physical limitations with arm strength and that has shown up from time to time but in most games it largely hasn’t mattered.
Brock’s overall contribution to the offense is bringing an aggressiveness and willingness to push the ball downfield. And Kyle Shanahan trusts him to do so. He hasn’t had a quarterback he could trust to sling a deep shot since Matt Ryan. And Brock was an MVP candidate like Matt Ryan was just two seasons ago.
So far in the Shanahan era, in the last two seasons, Purdy has outpaced every other 49ers quarterback since 2017 in average depth of target with an average downfield throw of 8.3 yards. Everyone else: 7.6. For context, Matt Ryan also averaged 8.3 yards depth of target in his 2016 MVP season.
A big reason why Purdy has such a high average depth of target is a willingness to take the best answer in a given down. There’s always a right and wrong answer, but more importantly, there’s usually always an answer that’s better than the “right” answer. The “right” answer might get you the three or four yards you need to keep the chains moving. The better answer might create an explosive play and get you 20 more yards than the right answer.
Here, Brock takes the better answer over the right answer. The pass concept is a dagger stick concept with a stick/flat to the left as the primary progressions with the flat being the #1 and the stick being the #2. Backside, Purdy has the option to reset and throw the deep over route in the slot or the outside dagger.
It would have been perfectly acceptable to take the “right” answer, the flat to Juszczyk, over the better answer, the deep through route to Jennings. But Purdy didn’t like the late drive on the flat and wanted to maximize the play and the yards, so he reset his feet in the pocket and delivered a strike to Jennings in tight man to man coverage.
In the two recent seasons, Kyle Shanahan has elected to move away from traditional play action with Purdy behind center as well. From 2017 to 2022, the percent of play action usage was 26.4%. In 2023, that number fell to 21.3% and even further in 2024 to 18.9%. There are a combination of factors like being able to get the same effect as play action due to personnel keying on specific players.
And despite his limited arm strength, he’s still willing to challenge the deep areas of the field and has more often than not come up with big time throws when the play is there to be made, as these two throws versus New England in 2024 week 4 show.
In the first play, the 49ers are running a burner post concept that is usually called with play action from under center. But Shanahan is relying less and less on play action in recent seasons with Purdy under center as he trusts him to make the right reads and throw on time.
In this first clip, the Patriots are playing cover-3 but keying in on Aiyuk. The gravity of his presence, more than anyone else in the offense last season, is hard to understate. When Purdy sees the deep middle safety bite on Aiyuk’s crossing route, he immediately launches the ball downfield to Deebo, who got behind all three deep defenders for an explosive gain.
While the ball is slightly behind Deebo, this next throw, on a similar concept, is thrown accurately in a spot only the receiver could get it.
The play call is a scissors concept to the front side with a backside alert dig to Aiyuk but this time with Jennings running the deep post instead of Deebo. Again, notice the gravity of Aiyuk’s presence drawing the quarters safety into the dig window.
Purdy saw this and launched the ball downfield to Jennings after both safeties were caught playing deeper routes inside. The pass is over the top of Jennings and the defender and Jennings makes a nice catch on an accurate pass.
If the shot plays are there, then Purdy is going to take them, arm strength be damned. He has more than arm to launch an accurate deep ball.
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In 2023, Purdy was the 6th ranked quarterback versus the blitz and the 14th ranked quarterback in 2024. A drop in rank but not a big deal. He’s been very efficient at dealing with the blitz so far in two seasons as the starter, especially as teams find ways to get free rushers at the quarterback.
In the Super Bowl, Purdy also hit a touchdown throw to Jauan Jennings early in the fourth quarter on the same concept as the one above, except he hit the “now” quick slant underneath the pile route.
On a touchdown throw to Jauan Jennings, the Chiefs are sending another cover-0 pressure. As with the cover-0 pressure above, the Chiefs are giving Purdy the same blitz indicators. But this time Brock drilled Jennings in the chest with a throw and Jennings barreled his way into the end zone. The offense is running a “Pile” concept, an out route with a dart/1-step slant route underneath it to the right, both of which are the hot reads here.
The free rushers problem has been a recurring issue under intense scrutiny for two seasons now. It’s not as big of a deal as fans make it out to be and every team in the NFL deals with it. But basically what’s happening is defenses are using the offensive line’s protection rules against them and are alert to how they will slide protection.
Purdy’s only answer to it is ensuring he sees it right away and throws hot as opposed to making adjustments pre-snap like re-MIKE-ing the defense. He has the ability to call audibles to the next play called, flip the play, reset the play, etc., but he cannot reset the protection.
Here, Purdy changes the play pre-snap because he senses a 1-on-1 matchup with Guerrendo out of the backfield. He guessed right because the Bears were in a 3-deep/3-under fire zone blitz where the underneath zone defender to the offense’s right would have to run with Guerrendo out of the backfield.
The Bears get a free rusher at Purdy with the 5-man rush where the free hitter is inside the B-gap to his left. The left tackle should have squeezed down inside and let the outside most rusher go. But the line protection was set to slide right because that’s where the most dangerous threats in the pass rush were with three over the center the offense’s right.
Brock got the pass off for a 27 yard gain, setting the offense up at the goal line for an eventual touchdown.
Perhaps his second best trait is his ability to throw with elite anticipation and seeing windows before they’re there to throw. He’s as good as any quarterback in the NFL at doing this. Purdy plays with so much anticipation that Shanahan doesn’t really need to set up easy defined throws for his quarterback. One reason why is Purdy can often anticipate the window before it’s even open.
This play from week two of 2023 illustrates the point. With Aiyuk running a dig route over the middle, Purdy hangs in to deliver an accurate throw in tight coverage. The reason the play works is because Purdy’s hands have already separated from the ball on his delivery as Aiyuk starts to get into his break.
There is traffic in front of Aiyuk but Purdy throws him open just outside the hash and drills him in the chest. The ball is 5 yards past the line of scrimmage before Aiyuk ever uncovers. The patience, timing, and accuracy here are elite.
Shanahan’s offense is always going to primarily be a middle of the field passing game predicated on the space his guys can create because that’s usually where the weakest links on the defense are.
There is still a level of anticipation needed to see a window before it opens and hit it on time like here in week 10 of 2024 in Tampa Bay. Purdy hits rookie Ricky Pearsall over the middle and is into his throwing motion before Pearsall ever breaks into the window, showing off good timing and rhythm.
Perhaps his best skill set, and one the 49ers have needed to bail them out in the season’s key moments, is his ability to extend the play off script when the timing and structure break down. Because of this trait, the 49ers will likely extend him for a hefty contract.
In the 2023 NFCCG, Brock scrambled three times for first downs on drive-extending plays on scoring drives that were crucial to the outcome of the game, including the last clip in there with just under five minutes to play. In the second clip, Purdy should’ve pulled the trigger to Jennings on the deep corner route but nonetheless, it was still a positive play from the signal caller.
His plus athleticism is a net positive for the offense. And nowhere is that more apparent than his ability to make plays out of structure.
It helps having a quarterback who can make off-schedule plays with ease if he can’t scramble for a first down. These are some of the more notable off schedule plays from 2024. He didn’t make quite as many of these plays last but that doesn’t diminish his capability to do so.
Perhaps the most consequential to keep the season alive came on a key drive in the 2024 week 10 game in Tampa Bay after the bye week, Brock made an incredible off schedule play to George Kittle in the very back corner of the end zone when no one was open on 2nd down.
He bought himself some time with some nice pocket movement, still saw nothing available to him, and broke from the pocket to his left. With a defender bearing down on him, he let a dime of a throw go to Kittle and put it in a spot only Kittle could catch it. Kittle secured it with two feet down in the corner and the 49ers took a 20-17 lead. By this point, the 49ers were 5-4 and looking to climb the ladder in the standings.
Unfortunately, the season mostly fell apart after this, with the 49ers winning one more game and Brock being sidelined for injury. To top that off, he didn’t finish the season as strongly as he should have. In the next two articles, we’ll set the stage for why the 49ers perhaps shouldn’t pay him top dollar and then look at the data and film in the 4th and final piece.