NFL Analysis
7/26/24
9 min read
Brock Purdy's 2024 Season will Chart His and 49ers' Future Course
Everyone is wrong about Brock Purdy.
Those who believe Purdy is just a product of the Shanahan system with the league’s best collection of receiving talent are wrong. Those who believe Purdy is singularly raising the ceiling of the San Francisco offense because of his play are also wrong.
There are too many extreme opinions on the San Francisco 49ers quarterback that a rational conversation is rarely possible. It’s easy to push back on Purdy’s play because even in the best-case scenario, his results far outweigh his impact on the offense.
In 2023, Purdy led the NFL in EPA per play by a mile, according to TruMedia.
It’s the biggest gap between the top two quarterbacks by EPA per play in a season in at least a decade.
It’s reasonable to admit Purdy is not far and away the NFL's best quarterback. However, that side of the argument can quickly turn into “Purdy isn’t good.” We come into this conversation with so many priors about Purdy and the 49ers that they shape our outlook more than anything else.
Obviously, we know the Shanahan offense is great. We know Christian McCaffrey unlocked something in that offense. And we know Purdy is just a seventh-round pick. We’ve also seen other quarterbacks, namely Jimmy Garoppolo, thrive in this offense. We just saw what Garoppolo looks like in another offense.
We also know Purdy's version of the 49ers is much better than Garoppolo's version. Yet, we have a tough time calibrating where that bar is located and how difficult it is to clear it.
What Purdy Adds
Let’s start there. What has Purdy added to the offense that Garoppolo limited?
The biggest addition to the San Francisco offense with Purdy is the rate at which passes go deep and outside the numbers. During Garoppolo’s tenure, he threw 50.1 percent of his passes between 1-10 air yards, 19.5 percent between 11-19, and 8.4 percent deep for 20 or more air yards. Purdy's rates are 45.9 percent, 22.8 percent, and 11.9 percent.
Purdy doesn’t have a massive arm but is willing to stand in the pocket and look for things to open down the field. That’s much more than Garoppolo offered, as he often tried to get the ball out as quickly as possible. 55.9 percent of Garoppolo’s passes were released within 2.5 seconds of the snap, while just 49.5 percent of Purdy’s were thrown that quickly.
This extends to throws outside the numbers, an area that didn’t exist for San Francisco before Purdy.
Waiting for things to develop downfield has opened up so many things for the 49ers. Purdy has already nearly thrown as many passes of 11 or more air yards outside the numbers as Garoppolo did during his entire San Francisco tenure and has nearly tripled the efficiency — 1.20 EPA per play to 0.42.
— Dan Pizzuta (@DanPizzuta) July 25, 2024
Purdy’s patience and aggressiveness have allowed nearly 30 percent of his targets to that area of the field to come on deep crossers, while that rate was less than nine percent for Garoppolo.
Where Purdy has improved
Throwing further down the field is something Purdy has built on during his year and a half as the 49ers’ starter. In 2022, Purdy’s average depth of target was just 6.6 yards, and that increased to 8.2 in 2023.
Purdy has also improved under pressure, though there is a bit of chicken and egg here. The 49ers have not had a consistently good pass-blocking offensive line, but Purdy still likes to bail from the pocket when he senses pressure might come.
Under pressure, Purdy ranked sixth in EPA per play and second in yards per attempt.
Only 52.7 percent of Purdy’s pass attempts came from a clean pocket in 2023, which ranked 24th, but the quarterback bears some responsibility for that. He ranked 23rd in the rate of dropbacks that came inside the pocket in general.
However, Purdy is athletic enough to make plays out of structure, and he lowered his pressure-to-sack rate from 18 percent in 2022 to 14.6 percent in 2023. He also tied for the most touchdowns thrown outside of the pocket (nine).
Where he still benefits from the offense
The Shanahan offense has evolved during the past few seasons, and it is no longer a play-action-heavy, middle-of-the-field-reliant passing attack. Some of that is due to what Purdy brings as a passer, but it also has to do with the other players on the field.
It’s difficult to separate how Purdy’s inclusion in the offense came at nearly the same time as the McCaffrey addition. Structurally, it’s so easy to see how McCaffrey has significantly changed what the 49ers can do with personnel and alignments.
While the 49ers have gotten away from relying on play-action and have used more traditional dropback passing, San Francisco has also shifted how the offense can manipulate linebackers in the middle of the field.
If the point of play-action is to get second-level defenders to play the run and hesitate when reacting to the pass, then using empty formations with five legitimate passing threats can accomplish the same type of hesitation without the running threat.
Lining McCaffrey up in the slot or outside has a similar effect on the spacing and leverage at the second level. Only Tua Tagovailoa (25.9 percent) used empty more often than Purdy (21.6 percent) in 2023, and Purdy was fourth in EPA per play from empty.
Purdy threw a quarter of his empty passes to running backs, but the impact of having to defend the back as a real pass-catching threat created opportunities for the rest of the receivers. Brandon Aiyuk was second in receiving yards from empty, George Kittle was ninth, and Deebo Samiel was 14th. McCaffrey was 24th.
McCaffrey’s skill set opens things up for the San Francisco offense that just aren’t available for other teams.
Shuffle motion into a deep shot pic.twitter.com/1Krc5jYLIE
— Dan Pizzuta (@DanPizzuta) January 31, 2024
Although Purdy relies less on yards after the catch than previous versions of the Shanahan offense, he still benefits from those yards in places that other quarterbacks might not. On intermediate throws between 11 and 19 air yards, Purdy got a league-leading 29.3 percent of his passing yards after the catch.
Where Purdy can improve
There’s still a bit of antsiness when Purdy feels the rush. Even though he’s improved under pressure, it’s still a weakness that can be exploited.
He can be rushed off his mark, and since so much of the offense is built around timing and anticipation, it can throw off the rhythm and force Purdy to make some bad decisions.
— Dan Pizzuta (@DanPizzuta) July 25, 2024
Some of Purdy’s worst games and/or throws have come against aggressive defenses that are willing to change the picture after the snap. Teams like the Vikings, Bengals, and Browns gave Purdy trouble for those reasons.
Those were games when Purdy had scattershot accuracy, which got him into trouble once his process was sped up. It wasn’t often, but when the game did appear to be moving too quickly, it was something that compounded throughout the game.
The most obvious example is the Ravens game from last season, when Baltimore was in full control of the matchup and disrupted everything the 49ers tried to do. Baltimore’s defensive coordinator, Mike Macdonald, is now the head coach in Seattle, and like the Shanahan/McVay style of offense, Macdonald's influence on defense is spreading across the league.
If reading the middle of the field and reacting to a changing picture can be the next step, then Purdy could eliminate some of the bad throws and decisions he makes. He already has the widest margin for error in the league, and cutting down on self-created mistakes would be a huge boost to his play.
Future outlook
This is the biggest season for Purdy and the 49ers because it will shape what the future of the franchise will look like. Purdy is eligible for an extension at the end of this season, and he’ll be looking for a deal that puts him among the top-paid players at the position.
That’s where the Purdy discussion matters most. If he’s somewhere between the full product of the offense and the most efficient quarterback in the league, what is the value of that type of player?
If he’s topping $55 million per year, which is the current top of the quarterback market, that will undoubtedly change how the 49ers can build out the rest of the roster. San Francisco is already struggling to find ways to keep the receiving corps together as Aiyuk "holds in" waiting for a new contract. That is all while Purdy will count for just $1 million on the 2024 cap and $1.1 million in 2025.
The best asset for an NFL team is a productive quarterback on a rookie contract — that’s exponentially more true when that’s a seventh-round rookie deal — but the second-best is a good quarterback in general. Where teams have gotten themselves into trouble is when they have committed to quarterbacks who have flashed good but haven’t sustained those flashes for one reason or another.
Purdy does enough that it wouldn’t be a stretch to consider him a good quarterback. But it’s also difficult to look at his body of work and believe he’s one of the best quarterbacks in the league, regardless of situation.
It’s also hard to ignore some of his weaknesses, which are traits that would be exploited if his surroundings and situation were made worse, something that would assuredly happen with a top-of-the-market extension.
Purdy improved during his second season, and he’ll get one more year to build on his resumè before a decision is made that will set the future course for both the team and the player.
