Film room: Assessing the 49ers quarterback situation part 4 - What Brock Purdy does well

Publicly, the 49ers appear to be setting themselves up for a Brock Purdy-led future when Purdy is cleared and able to play again. Lynch’s comments about him being “the leader in the clubhouse” combined with all the possible trade scenarios involving Trey Lance show a team that might be ready to commit Purdy long term.

Privately, that might not be the case as no one really knows what Kyle Shanahan himself wants to do at quarterback. All the leaks recently point to John Lynch and people close to him as the only time Shanahan has said anything, it was to walk back Lynch’s statements made a couple of days prior while at the recent NFL meetings.

Whereas Lynch said they hope Purdy is ready for camp, Shanahan tempered expectations when he expressed that might not be the case, suggesting the two may not really be on the same page at all. Whatever the case, there are a few things that Purdy did well in his 7-1 start to his career that the team and fans can at least feel confident about should Purdy retain the QB1 spot at some point.

Timing/anticipation throws

The 49ers have the weapons on offense to take the pressure off of Purdy but he will still have to hit throws that are there and do it with timing against a top ranked defense. Against Miami in his first start, he showed he knows where to go with the ball if given a chance.

Week 13, 3rd quarter, 13:39 remaining

On this play, Purdy displayed good timing and anticipation to hit a throw over the middle of the field on a dig route to Jauan Jennings.

The route combination is a dig route and choice out route to stretch the underneath coverage and create a throwing window for the dig route.

The defense is playing a spot drop nickel cover-9 where the safety rotation is to the weak side flat away from the passing strength and away from the nickel defender with the underneath defenders dropping to the sticks and trying to take away the middle of the field throws.

The throw here would require some anticipation since the defenders are seeking to take away what the 49ers love to do and they do it well: throw over the middle of the field. Purdy reads the safety rotation and knows right away that he has the dig route behind the weak hook/”3-receiver hook” defender to his left side. The ball is out of his hand before Jennings ever uncovers from the linebacker.

Reading progressions pre and post snap

Perhaps one of his biggest strengths displayed in the Miami game was reading progressions and Shanahan likes to call the same plays more than a few times in a game for his two young quarterbacks to help them with the picture they are seeing post snap.

The 49ers called a 4-man snag concept with a swing pass, a corner route, an “over the ball” route, and a backside slant route if the quarterback likes the match-up 1-on-1 and sees bump or press coverage.

On his first three attempts on this concept, Purdy read the pre-snap 1-on-1 matchup that Aiyuk had versus the corner and threw the quick slant to him, two were completed, while one was off target. Purdy demonstrated good pre-snap recognition of the matchup across the field.

In sequence early in the fourth quarter, Shanahan called it three times in a row. One was in the cut-up above with the quick slant to Aiyuk. In the two plays after that, Shanahan changed up the personnel groups and ran the same concept.

In the first clip, Purdy surveyed the field, first looking for Aiyuk but the Dolphins defense dropped a defender to the flat to help on his slant. Purdy then scanned across, feet in sync with his eyes before finally settling for the checkdown to Deebo.

In the second clip, Purdy found Deebo again, this time Deebo was running the snag route while McCaffrey was running the swing. Purdy quickly looked to the slant, then across and found Deebo in a small window where Deebo was able to catch and get upfield for a few yards.

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Blitz recognition and poise under pressure

Perhaps his best throw in 2022 came when he beat the blitz on a third down throw versus Miami to George Kittle on a short post route over the logo of the field. It was the same pressure package that recorded the sack on Jimmy Garoppolo in the first quarter, the play he got injured on.

The 49ers are running their “chevy” concept, a two man route combination to the right with a skinny post and a “tony” route which is just a stick route out of the backfield with the option to cut outside versus the leverage.

The defense has seven defenders hugged up to the line of scrimmage and presnap this looks like a cover-0 blitz. Purdy has to figure out where the rushers are coming from. The pass protection slides to the left to the widest and most dangerous rusher on the offense’s left edge.

The rush only comes from four defenders but since the offensive line slide to the left, the free rusher comes off the right edge of the offense, and this makes him Purdy’s responsibility. Purdy sees it and fires the pass just before he gets hit. From snap to throw, he released the ball in 1.78 seconds. That’s some fast recognition. 

In his Football Morning in America column on Monday morning after the Sunday games, Peter King wrote that he talked with Shanahan about this play, saying:

“I thought this was Purdy’s play of the game,” I (Peter King) said.

“I did too,” Shanahan said. “Especially with what they were doing to us. They were coming after Brock and doing a good job of taking our quick throws away. This was a huge job of Brock signaling something to change the route [for Kittle].”

Purdy recognized the blitz pre-snap and made a route adjustment on Kittle’s route to shorten the post route. The route is normally run at 6 steps before breaking to the post. Kittle shortened his route to 5 steps.

The change is significant because on a 6-step post route, the inside foot is the lead foot. On Kittle’s route, notice how he changes his stance to the outside foot up, this shortens the route to a 5-step route by the receiver. The adjustment was likely communicated pre-snap in the huddle because there is nothing on the all-22 to suggest it was made at the line and Kittle lines up right away with his outside foot up.That’s one hell of an adjustment.

Pressure

Brock Purdy was 7-for-8 under pressure with 109 yards and two touchdowns. He hit two throws for touchdowns and paid the price for them with big hits. He hit other throws where he evaded pressure and found receivers downfield or found his checkdown and he seemed totally unfazed by the pressure.

Week 14 2022, 2nd quarter, 7:55 remaining

His signature play in this game was throwing a 27 yard touchdown pass down the left sideline to Christian McCaffrey on a go route on a dagger/Y-cross concept.

The play call by Shanahan had George Kittle aligned in the backfield with McCaffrey split out wide to the left as the #1 receiver to the left of the formation. McCaffrey is running the alert go route down the left sideline. Kittle is in pass protection and the backside of the concept is running a deep crossing route with a dagger route behind it. They are in an 11 personnel 2x2 spread formation.

It looks like the defense is in a cover-0 blitz but Bowles is bringing the linebacker rush from two off-the-ball defensive tackles at linebacker depth in addition to the front four rushers. This looks to be some sort of heavy cover-0 blitz package designed to overwhelm the interior to the offensive line and put pressure on the quarterback. The rest of the coverage is man-to-man with the receivers.

The defensive tackles rushing from linebacker depth both easily get passed center Jake Brendel who lowered his pad level and just tried to absorb at least one rusher but both got into the backfield with relative ease. Pre-snap, Purdy identified the safety Logan Ryan covering McCaffrey out wide, his man coverage indicator. He also identified that it was probably a blitz of some type with the defensive tackles as linebackers.

He caught the snap and confirmed his pre-snap visuals, located the coverage on McCaffrey and tossed one downfield as he took a shot from the defenders. Ryan, in man coverage on McCaffrey, for some reason got caught looking inside at Aiyuk’s route and bit on it as McCaffrey was sprinting past him. Purdy placed the ball with precision on McCaffrey’s outside shoulder away from the trailing defender where he was able to catch it and drag his feet in the end zone.

Week 14 2022, 2nd quarter, 1:21 remaining

On Purdy’s second touchdown pass of the game, he found Brandon Aiyuk down the left sideline just before halftime on a “curl pump” route but to get to that pass, Shanahan dialed up a swirl or “7-stop” route earlier on this drive. Shanahan is a master at putting defenders through a blender.

On the double swirl route, Purdy located Aiyuk versus the cover-2 cloud coverage side of the Buccaneers cover-6. 

As Purdy drops back to pass, pay close attention to his helmet stripe. That’s a good indication of what he is doing with eyes and how he’s manipulating the coverage. He keeps his feet in sync with eyes and that holds the defenders in the middle of the field just long enough to prevent them from getting into the throwing lane to Aiyuk.

His eyes/stripe stay in the middle of the field while the routes develop before he delivers a pass into the hole in the zone. This allows Aiyuk to turn and get up field for 11 more yards.

Later on this drive, Aiyuk beat the coverage with a stutter-and-go and got behind the entire secondary before he caught the pass.

2nd quarter, 1st and 10 @ TB 32, :22 remaining

The play call here is “curl pump hurricane” with a “curl pump” by Aiyuk where he sells the deep curl route, stutters out of his break, and takes off downfield. Inside of him is a deep crosser and coming from the right side is Kittle on a shallow crossing route. 

The defense is in quarters coverage pre-snap that rotates to cover-3 “sky” (strong safety rotation to the passing strength) post snap to take away the seams and in-breaking routes. 

Aiyuk has a corner over the top of his route this time, to prevent him from getting free access down the field. But he gives a little stutter move like he is going to break and work back to the ball like a receiver would on a curl route. This gets Jamel Dean to bite on his double move as Aiyuk sprints past as he likely felt a similar route as the one above with Aiyuk’s condensed split.

The coverage is behind him by the time Purdy throws the ball and he did so just before he took a massive hit in the pocket. The pass hung a bit as he was forced to throw sooner and couldn’t get his full follow through on the pass but it had enough juice to clear the defenders chasing Aiyuk and right into his hands before scoring.

Off schedule throws

Purdy ranked 21st out of all quarterbacks with at least a minimum of 20% of 288 snaps per Pro Football Focus. In his first start, he was under pressure on 14 dropbacks and faced the blitz on 12 per Pro Football Focus.

He showed he has the athleticism to out run the rush. In both plays above, he’s able to beat the defenders to the edge and get the ball off to his receivers.

On Sunday after the game, Shanahan stated:

“I think Brock naturally looks a lot more often for the deeper one than the shorter one, which is awesome. Sometimes, it helped today. In a couple early, I thought he missed just having someone quick right there and just trying to look for something deeper and then ran out of time to come back to the short one. You like that about a guy’s personality. You want that much more than the other way.”

His aggression was on full display despite the outcome of these two plays. In this first play, a play action passing concept with a deep crosser and deep post on the same side, Purdy looked for the deep post near the end zone and might have completed an explosive pass play but he left the pass just a bit behind Deebo when it should have been a few more yards out in front where Deebo could run to it.

On his interception on a throw to Aiyuk, he had Aiyuk singled up 1-on-1 with Xavien Howard and took his chances with that matchup. The pass needed to be placed a bit more outside on Aiyuk’s back shoulder but nonetheless, the rookie seemed unphased by the matchups and seemed willing to let his playmakers go make plays. Eventually he will hit a few of these throws for an explosive play.

Still, these plays didn’t kill Shanahan’s confidence. In Wednesday’s press conference, Shanahan also stated, in response to a question about Purdy’s aggressiveness:

“I like when a play is there that guys aren’t scared to make it, they don’t hesitate, they don’t take a second look at it. They let it rip and they worry about it after. A lot of guys who just guess do that too, so you have to find out whether they’re being aggressive or just if they’re deciding then to do it or if they’re deciding on Wednesday and then that’s a big difference, but Brock has been very good with it. He can explain what he sees and that’s why we got a lot of confidence in him.”

What Purdy brings to the offense

A while ago I was asked in a mailbag article why Shanahan waited to unleash his offense when Brock came in for Jimmy. I don’t think Shanahan was waiting to unleash his offense. Purdy was still running the same basic structure of the offense Jimmy was running with an uptick in the usage of pistol formations.

I think that’s the only difference. With Purdy, the difference is that he will look to take the deep throws if they are there when Jimmy was more cautious and methodical. But Shanahan has built in shot plays and routes he wants the quarterback to throw if they’re able. Sometimes Jimmy was unable to even if the throw was there.

The other reason the offense functions differently than it did with Jimmy is that Purdy is a smart, efficient quarterback who knows where to go with the ball and when, how to make subtle movements in the pocket to give himself time to throw and a throwing lane, how to evade defenders who do get through to him in the pocket, and how to manipulate defenders to create throwing windows.

The 49ers offense with Jimmy G, pre-McCaffrey trade, ranked 14th in EPA/play at .037 and post-McCaffrey trade with Jimmy G in week 7-12, they 49ers offense ranked 5th at .127 EPA/play. With Brock Purdy in weeks 13-17 so far, the 49ers offense ranks 3rd at .149 EPA/play over that time period (EPA stats courtesy of the website rbdsm.com). though I don’t necessarily think Purdy is the reason for that uptick. I think that would’ve happened if Jimmy had not been injured.

But Purdy certainly did his part to contribute to that uptick in EPA/play.

Here you can see Purdy make subtle movements in the pocket to buy himself time and create a throwing window. He doesn’t panic, his feet aren’t like cement bricks in the ground, and he doesn’t drop his eyes.

All this allows him to be able to hit throws on time as the play develops and he can’t find guys open. He hits the checkdowns on these throws but that isn’t a bad thing at all, especially as there is no one open late in the down.

Here you can see Purdy make subtle movements in the pocket to buy himself time and create a throwing window. He doesn’t panic, his feet aren’t like cement bricks in the ground, and he doesn’t drop his eyes.

All this allows him to be able to hit throws on time as the play develops and he can’t find guys open. He hits the checkdowns on these throws but that isn’t a bad thing at all, especially as there is no one open late in the down.

He’s making some tight window throws as well as he’s able to look off defenders and create a throwing lane for himself.

And he’s not so easily fooled by exotic coverages and defender zone drops. Last week I showed how the Commanders tried to bait him with robber coverage after he beat their regular cover-1 coverage with a throw in stride to Kittle.

The Commanders tried to bait him with a 2-deep safety coverage pre-snap that rotated down to cover-1 robber. No big deal, Purdy recognized what they were doing and threw his pass outside the linebacker away from the robber safety to Jennings for a long third down conversion.

Here on the goal line versus the Raiders, the Raiders defense tried to bait him with drop-8 coverage in the end zone to compress the space and take away the throwing lanes. Most of the time this coverage is effective in these situations. The Raiders didn’t just drop a defensive end, they dropped a defensive tackle into a zone to the wider side of the field where the trips receivers were lined up.

Purdy spins out of the pocket to the left with no throw to the right side. It looked like he wanted Kittle shallow over the middle but the presence of the defensive tackle in the low hole discouraged that throw. As he scrambles, the defense comes up just enough to chase him that Kittle is able to slip behind everyone to the back corner where Purdy places the pass over everyone in front of it. That’s not an easy throw.

So I don’t believe that Kyle Shanahan wait until Purdy came in to unleash his offense. I think this is what it was finally supposed to look like with efficient quarterbacking.

In part 2, we’ll look at the areas Purdy will need to improve when he’s able to play again.