Analysis
10/15/23
6 min read
Don't Panic: Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers Will Be Just Fine
For the first time with Brock Purdy behind center, the San Francisco 49ers lost a regular season game. The Cleveland Browns beat the 49ers in a 19-17 back alley brawl, finally putting a stain on Purdy's perfect 10-0 record as a starter.
The loss itself is whatever. No team is going 17-0. Every team in the league has at least one loss now — the Philadelphia Eagles also lost on Sunday. What's more surprising is that the 49ers offense didn't look like the well-oiled points machine it had been in Purdy's other ten starts.
A Perfect Storm
San Francisco's offensive implosion was a perfect storm of everything going wrong.
This was always going to be a battle for the 49ers offense based on the matchup with Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz. For as long as the two have been in the league together, Schwartz has been a thorn in Shanahan's side. Shanahan's offenses have never scored more than 20 points against Schwartz in the handful of times they have met.
Beyond Schwartz flat-out being a good playcaller, it's a "styles make fights" issue for Shanahan. Shanahan's entire identity revolves around running the ball, using motion and play-action to deceive second-level defenders and trying to throw the ball into spaces around defenders frozen with hesitation. Schwartz's defenses don't care about any of that.
Everyone up front is playing a gap and moving full speed ahead no matter what. There's no sitting around and reading out this and that to play perfectly sound defense. It's a kill-or-be-killed defense, and that just doesn't let Shanahan do much of the stuff he wants to if executed well.
Forces of Nature
Mother Nature was also on Schwartz's side. Rain was coming down for most of the first half. The weather let up a bit in the second half, but the conditions on the field were still sloppy for the rest of the contest.
Brock Purdy is struggling in the rain ☔️ pic.twitter.com/GxhbPEKuzt
— 1 Bay Live (@1QLive) October 15, 2023
Not that it tells the whole story, but Purdy's hands are on the smaller side at 9.25 inches. That's in the 24th percentile and right on the threshold of what's typically accepted in the NFL. Hand size may not seem like a big deal, but it can matter when a quarterback needs to grip and rip a football in bad weather. Purdy never looked like he had a comfortable grip on the ball and was spraying throws left and right as a result. If we're honest, he could have used the Teddy Two Gloves treatment.
Injuries were killing the 49ers, too. WR Deebo Samuel left with a shoulder injury in the first quarter, and RB Christian McCaffrey was in and out of the lineup during the second half with an oblique injury. Now, the 49ers roll around six deep in terms of impact skill players, but losing those two guys will hurt no matter what. That's especially true when those two are arguably the offense's best "easy" buttons in terms of generating yards with the ball in their hands.
Fewer easy buttons meant more on Purdy's shoulders. Before Sunday, we had never seen Purdy deal with that reality against a good defense.
Worst Performance of Purdy's Career
Throw all that in a blender, and you get the worst performance of Purdy's career. According to TruMedia, Purdy's 23.3 percent passing success rate against the Browns was the fifth-worst success rate in a game by any quarterback this season and the lowest mark of his career.
It felt that way watching it, too. Purdy couldn't do anything beyond the gimmes. A few of those Shanahan specials worked, like the red zone screen to McCaffrey for a touchdown on the opening drive, but Purdy sputtered the moment the offense opened up beyond that. Purdy never found any type of rhythm, a discomfort brought on by the Browns' pass rush and the horrid weather.
Purdy also threw his first interception of the year. He tried finding Brandon Aiyuk on a dig route late in the progression and threw the ball a good two yards behind his receiver. It was the first career of Martin Emerson Jr.'s career and probably one of the easiest he'll ever get.
That one has been brewing for a while. Purdy has been throwing into coverage all season and testing the universe without punishment. He was due for a pick.
Don't get it twisted: I love that Purdy plays with that aggressive mentality. Most of the good quarterbacks do. But most of the good quarterbacks also get punished for that from time to time, and Purdy had escaped that fate for the first five weeks of the season. A little bit of regression finally came back to haunt Purdy in the one game he needed his interception immunity to last. Sometimes, football is a cruel game.
No Need to Panic
It would be really convenient if I could wrap this up with some 49ers panic. A good ol' "here's why the 49ers' Super Bowl run is in trouble," or something to that effect would really get things going. There won't be a better time to do that all year long than after a loss to a Browns team starting P.J. Walker at quarterback.
But I won't do that because there's no reason to do that. One loss in bad weather against maybe the best defense in football doesn't move the needle a whole lot. Weird losses happen in the NFL. This 49ers offense is still one of the best in the league, and even an 85 percent version of their peak form is enough to take them to the Super Bowl.
Maybe this game tells us Purdy can't put the team on his back, but that's never really been part of the calculus with the 49ers being contenders anyway. The 49ers are frontrunners. Always have been with Shanahan. They're unbelievably good at getting ahead and staying ahead because of how explosive they can be on offense and because they have an elite defense backing them.
Chances are that formula will serve them well the rest of the way. It worked with Jimmy Garoppolo and, save for one game now, it has worked even better with Purdy.
So take a deep breath, 49ers fans. Nothing is wrong with the offense. This loss isn't anything more than a bump in the road to another NFC Championship game.
Derrik Klassen is an NFL and NFL Draft film analyst with a particular interest in quarterbacks. Klassen’s work is also featured on Bleacher Report and Reception Perception. You can follow him on Twitter (X) at @QBKlass.
