I just got off the phone with one of my favorite people in the world, sportswriter, author and college professor, Lowell Cohn. We are in disagreement, something you can do with someone you respect, about San Francisco 49ers Quarterback Brock Purdy.
On a recent podcast his son, Grant, hosts, the father and son discussed Purdy and his current negotiations with the Niners. The Cohn men were in agreement that Purdy was not among the elite quarterbacks in the league, they could name nearly a dozen signal callers they would rate higher than the 49ers field general.
Justin Herbert was on the list of quarterbacks they had rated over Purdy, and I counter with this fact: Herbert has never won a postseason game. In his brief career, Purdy has participated in three times as many playoff games as Herbert, six to two, and won four of them. In his first of two losses Purdy was injured in the first quarter in a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in the National Football Conference Championship Game in the same season he replaced an injured Jimmy Garoppolo in December and was perfect as an NFL starter until that loss in Philadelphia.
Purdy’s only other postseason loss was an overtime defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII. In that game, Purdy led the 49ers to a go-ahead field goal before Patrick Mahomes and company trumped that effort with a winning touchdown.
Did Purdy lose that game for the 49ers or was it the defense's inability to keep Mahomes out of the endzone on the game’s final drive?
Last year, Cohn suggested in his debate with me about Purdy, was a step back for the 49ers quarterback and he now believes that being the last player chosen in the 2022 draft carries more evidence of his ranking near the middle of quarterbacks rather than among the elite. He makes that statement while admitting that Tom Brady was a sixth-round draft choice and Joe Montana was taken in the third round by the 49ers.
I suggest that where a quarterback is taken in the draft is not the most important yardstick to measure their abilities. While NFL teams are often criticized for making mistakes in the draft, particularly at the quarterback position, it is worth noting that in last year’s playoffs only Jalen Hurts was not a first-round selection for the eight teams that participated in the Divisional Playoff round … and he was a second-round choice by the Eagles in 2020.
Still, gems are found in later rounds in addition to Brady and Montana … and I suggest Purdy is one of them.
Last year, the 49ers had a miserable season and Purdy a down year, which is not uncommon for a team that lost the Super Bowl the previous season. But was Purdy’s off year the reason the 49ers missed the playoffs?
I suggest not.
The 49ers missing the postseason could be more pinned to a defense that simply didn’t make the big plays when it counted most. The 49ers were overtaken late in games in which Purdy had staked them to a lead and the defense failed at critical times.
Don’t you love football?
Don’t you love that two guys or ladies can argue their side of a proposition without real evidence to support either side until, well until the results are in.
Is Purdy an elite quarterback?
Hall of Fame Quarterback Steve Young told me that he has only seen three quarterbacks that the game appears to slow down for when it matters most. Those times when the stakes are highest and pressure builds the three field generals he saw and projected were best equipped to handle the situation were Peyton Manning, Patrick Mahomes and, wait for it … Brock Purdy.
I’m sure the Cohn men would include Manning and Mahomes in the all-time elite list of quarterbacks, now we get to see over the next decade if Purdy can elevate himself to those standards.
I think he will, they don’t.