The high stakes gamble part 2: what the film and data says about not paying Brock Purdy yet
What the film and data show about Purdy's struggles as well diving into some of the common misperceptions about "separation" and pressure.
The San Francisco 49ers enter 2025 at a pivotal moment. After a thrilling Super Bowl run in 2023, the team endured a disappointing 2024 season that failed to meet lofty expectations, leaving the franchise with a critical decision at quarterback. Brock Purdy, once an underdog success story, now finds himself at the center of debate.
His breakout 2023 campaign—featuring 12 wins, a Super Bowl appearance, clutch playoff performances, and a league-leading 72.8 QBR—solidified his place as the team’s future. Yet, his struggles in 2024, including a middling 4-4 start with 20 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, have raised questions about whether he’s a true franchise quarterback or simply a beneficiary of Kyle Shanahan’s system and a talented roster.
The 49ers’ next move could shape the team’s fortunes for years to come. If Purdy rebounds, he could silence doubters and reaffirm his status as the long-term answer. However, if his regression continues, San Francisco may need to explore other options, potentially resetting at the game’s most important position.
With a roster built to win now, the pressure is on Purdy and the coaching staff to prove that 2023 was no fluke—and that the 49ers remain legitimate contenders in an increasingly competitive NFC.
No game more encapsulated the struggles than a week 15 game versus Los Angeles on a Thursday night. Even accounting for Deebo Samuel’s dropped touchdown—a moment that could have shifted momentum—Purdy still had two opportunities to elevate his team and failed.
This game encapsulated the central concern: When stripped of ideal circumstances (a healthy McCaffrey, a cohesive offense, playmakers not playing up to their caliber), can Purdy transcend the chaos and be the difference-maker his price tag demands?
Kyle Shanahan’s play call caught the Rams in bad coverage for the offensive play design. The Rams are in cover-6 with quarters to the passing strength and cover-2 backside to the single receiver side. The route combination isolates the quarters safety with a deep over the ball route from Kittle and puts the corner in a 1-on-1 situation with Ricky Pearsall on the deep post route.
Purdy sets up off of play action, navigates the pass rush up the middle and makes the right decision to throw the deep post to Pearsall. But the ball was short and hung on him, forcing Pearsall to adjust to a jump ball that allowed Rams cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon to knock it away.
On his interception in this game a few plays later, he threw the ball up into double coverage due to pressure off the edge.
Ideally he would hit the checkdown in front of him but there wasn’t time to get there because he predetermined the throw and stared it down the whole time before launching it into double coverage. A look to the route and seeing the corner flip his hips and not bite on the double move should have triggered him to come off the throw immediately.
It rained off and on for this game and that more than likely impacted his performance but that highlights another limitation: lack of physical strength and ability to drive the ball. Several of his throws were off target and knocked away. But that wasn’t any different in non-weather games either.
In 2024, he finished the season 36th out of 43 qualifying quarterbacks in passing accuracy (min 150 attempts), charted as on-target throw %, per Sports Info Solutions. In 2023, that ranking was 12th out of 42, while having nearly the same average depth of target (8.2 in 2023, 8.4 in 2024).
In 2024, he finished 34 out of 36 in deep passing accuracy among quarterbacks with a minimum of 20 deep passing attempts while having the 3rd lowest average depth of deep passing target too.
Purdy struggled with downfield passing accuracy because he just does not have the arm strength to consistently hit these passes in stride. At the end of the half in 2024 week seven versus Kansas City, Purdy hit George Kittle for 41 yards down the left sideline but it was an under-thrown pass after Purdy found space in a clean pocket to get the throw off.
Shanahan got Kittle matched up on a safety and it was the look they wanted. Purdy did an excellent job navigating the pocket but fell short on the throw. And it was as clean as an NFL pocket is ever going to be. Moving up in it what all NFL quarterbacks would be expected to do. This play has to be a touchdown. And they were not able to capitalize on it before the half.
On Brock’s third interception of that game, which I covered in a separate post, the offense faced 3rd and 5 from the 5-yard line. This was the result of underthrowing Jacob Cowing down the right sideline a few plays earlier.
Cowing was wide open on a double move down the right sideline called “curl pump.” If Purdy hits him in stride, then they likely would have scored and that interception never would have occurred.
Fans usually point to the deficiencies in the offensive line as to why Purdy struggled so often in the regular season. But the offensive line was ranked 13th overall by Pro Football Focus at the end of the season. Five worse ranked offensive lines managed to make the playoffs from that list, while one team ranked in that top 10 didn’t make the playoffs.
It’s why I always say that the offensive line issues are incredibly overblown. Fans usually cite “unblocked” rushers as proof of a deficiency, but that is not in and of itself an offensive line blocking issue, that is primarily a scheme issue.
On the critical play after the two-minute warning in the Super Bowl, Purdy misidentified a free rusher that the offensive line was not responsible for. Shanahan’s play call deployed a 2x2 formation with a condensed stack of receivers on the right and a spread look to the left.
Tight end George Kittle was atypically positioned in the running back spot instead of Christian McCaffrey, while the offense ran a double slant concept to the left with Brandon Jennings and Aiyuk.
The Chiefs showed man coverage and hinted at a blitz from the right, prompting center Jake Brendel to adjust the offensive line to a “5-0” pass protection, tasking the line with blocking the five primary rushers.
Kittle, responsible for picking up a sixth potential rusher, misidentified the blitzer, failing to block Chiefs defender Trent McDuffie, who charged unblocked. This lapse was compounded by Kittle’s inexperience in the role, raising questions about coach Kyle Shanahan’s decision to place him there in such a high-stakes moment.
Purdy also shares blame here. Pre-snap, the Chiefs’ safety alignment—capping defenders near the line—signaled an impending blitz, a clue Purdy missed. With McDuffie rushing freely, Purdy targeted Jennings on an outside slant, a typically reliable route against two-deep coverage.
While the decision to throw this wasn’t inherently flawed, the unblocked pressure disrupted the play’s timing. Though the protection scheme should have neutralized the rush, the combination of Kittle’s error and Purdy’s oversight led to a critical breakdown, highlighting both schematic and execution failures in a pivotal situation.
In addition to this, in 2023, Purdy was under pressure on 39.6% and blitzed on 38.7% of his drop backs. In 2024, he was under pressure on 37.4% (-2.2%) and blitzed on 35.8% (-1.9%) of his drop backs. He faced roughly 2% less pressure and blitz snaps from 2023 to 2024, but his quarterback “own pressure” responsibility rose from 13% in 2023 to 19.9% in 2024, pre Pro Football Focus.
By comparison, the 49ers offensive line had the 10th lowest pressure responsibility per Pro Football Focus.
For example, Purdy was sacked six times in the game against Minnesota in week two. He was credited with four of those sacks. Here’s his third sack coming early in the third quarter.
The offense is running a staple concept they kill teams with on a regular basis, the deep dig over the middle. It’s as much a staple play for Shanahan these last two seasons as it is the outside zone. Purdy is lights-out on this concept. It’s a good high-low on the vertical hook defender in the slot and if had time, he might have gotten to the dig.
The Vikings are playing quarters behind a 5-man pressure. Juszczyk is the running back in the back field and leaks out because the offensive line has everyone accounted for in pass protection. The line is half sliding to the left because the center is covered with two pass rushers to their left along the offensive line versus two rushers to the right.
The Vikings slant their rush to the offense’s left and drawing Dominick Puni inside where his man picks Brendel. Puni can’t recover and loses track of the stunt the Vikings send inside to get a free rusher at Purdy.
But while this is happening, there’s about four seconds for Purdy to make a decision and hit his checkdown over the middle. He doesn’t and takes the sack. Cannot hold the ball that long when the check down is right there.
His time to throw went from 2.73 in 2023 to 2.99 in 2024, suggesting he was holding the ball longer and not as decisive as he used to be with his reads. Some might argue that’s the result of receivers being unable to get separation.
But through the first seven weeks, Brandon Aiyuk led the NFL in separation score by a wide margin and receiver win rate in getting open. His entire week 3 performance against the Rams showcases this. In fact, he never relinquished that position the entire season.
And Jauan Jennings finished 16th in receiver win rate and 31st out of 266 wide receivers that ran at least 100 routes.
Kittle and Deebo were in the middle of the NFL in win rate. In ESPN’s “Receiver Open Score,” Kittle was 15th in open score and Jennings was 27th out of 159 qualifying receivers for that metric.
And typically, when a player leaves your favorite team, especially one with a rocky relationship before heading out, fans tend deliberately rewrite that player’s recent performance with the team into something it’s not.
That’s what happened with Deebo, who was largely blamed for Purdy’s struggles. But the video above is over 5 minutes long of all the top end plays just from 2024 from Deebo. The idea that the 49ers receivers were unable to get open or make plays is not grounded in reality.
The issue isn’t receivers who can’t separate (because they can), the issue is when there are bodies flying around him in the pocket, when it gets a little muddy and chaotic, essentially when the pocket gets “tall,” (meaning he can’t just escape), then he is quite often off-target with his lack of arm strength showing up.
Purdy’s playoff run to the Super Bowl is most remembered for his 4th quarter heroics but fans never really consider why they were in that position to begin with. It is undoubtedly a good thing he could keep battling back and helping the team win, but he sort of put them in that position in the first place.
It was nearly the same situation versus the Lions in 2024 in week 17, except this time, Purdy played well through the first half and unraveled in the 2nd half.
On his first interception, he badly overthrew it and it sailed on him. It looked like maybe Pearsall might have stopped on his route for a split second but he’s adjusting to the flight of the ball as he sees where it’s headed.
On the second interception, Purdy was late throwing the route and the Lions, playing Tampa-2 robber, dropped their deep safety to the intermediate middle of the field where he jumped the dig route and intercepted it.
Purdy doesn’t have the arm to drive that pass into that window. As a result, he cannot afford to be late and usually anticipates those throws better than he did here.
Outlook
Committing $60 million per year to Purdy now would be a massive gamble, banking on him rediscovering his rookie-year magic despite clear warning signs—his struggles in clutch situations and ongoing durability concerns. The smarter approach is patience.
The 2025 season should serve as Purdy’s ultimate proving ground: Can he elevate his game under pressure, sharpen his decision-making, and demonstrate he’s more than just a product of Kyle Shanahan’s scheme and elite supporting talent?
If he delivers, then pay him like the franchise quarterback he aspires to be. If he falters, the 49ers avoid a catastrophic financial mistake and can reset at the position without being weighed down by an albatross contract.
In today’s NFL, one oversized quarterback deal can derail a team’s championship window for years. The 49ers must resist the temptation of premature commitment.
Purdy’s late-season stumbles in 2024—particularly his Week 17 collapse—serve as a stark reminder: True greatness isn’t measured when everything goes right, but when a player overcomes adversity. The risk of overpaying far outweighs the reward of locking him in early.
Waiting isn’t just cautious—it’s the only logical move for a franchise with Super Bowl aspirations.