How Brock Purdy measures up to his 49ers predecessors since turn of the century

San Francisco Chronicle​

22-05-2025

Brock Purdy has put two full NFL seasons on tape, including in 2023 when he led the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl. He said Wednesday the offseason subsequent to almost winning a Lombardi Trophy was a whirlwind.
He played into February, got married in March and started Phase 1 of offseason workouts in April. He couldn't mentally reset and reflect on his game — he didn't have the time. Just keep swimming.
The lone upside to a 6-11 season that ended with the 49ers outside of the playoff picture was the time off. Purdy had a lot of it as he took a step back to consider how he might take two steps forward with a large extension looming. At Wednesday's news conference, Purdy stood as a newly minted $265 million man. What does one do in the process of becoming the richest player in 49ers history? Watch film of his footwork dating back to his days as a third-string rookie, apparently.
'I actually have gone back and watched a lot of my rookie tape,' Purdy said. 'When I first got in, how I was on it, and all I knew was what they coached me, my footwork and where my eyes need to be. So sort of syncing back to those fundamentals and applying that to OTAs and field work every single day.'
Across nine games played and five starts in 2022, Purdy had as good of a beginning to his career as anyone could have asked of a 'Mr. Irrelevant' last draft pick after being abruptly thrust into the starting role late in the season. He threw for 13 touchdowns against just four interceptions with a 107.3 passer rating, higher than any mark Jimmy Garoppolo achieved in any season during his six-season 49ers tenure from 2017-2022 (including multiple campaigns abbreviated by injury).
Garoppolo posted a 96.2 rating through six games and five starts in 2017 (his first year in San Francisco) and a 92.4 rating with six starts in 2020. That number was 102.0 in what some might argue was Garoppolo's best 49ers season in 2019, when he had the team one quarter away from winning the Super Bowl.
That was just a taste of what was to come. No 49ers starting quarterback this century had a season that closely rivaled what sophomore Purdy accomplished in his first full season as a starter in 2023.
Purdy's 113.0 passer rating? Comfortably better than the highest single-season passer rating of Garoppolo (103.0), Colin Kaepernick (98.3), Alex Smith (104.1) and Jeff Garcia (97.6) in their time as the 49ers' QB1.
Purdy's QBR — an advanced metric beyond traditional passer rating that factors in strength of opposing defense, down and distance and rushing, among other variables — that same year was 73.4, the second-highest among the best the aforementioned bunch had to offer, just shy of the 73.7 that Kaepernick finished with in 2012 on 226 fewer pass attempts en route to his own Super Bowl appearance. Purdy finished tied atop the regular-season leaderboard for QBR with Dak Prescott, who became the NFL's highest-paid quarterback at the start of the next season.
According to Pro Football Focus, Purdy ranked No. 1 in success rate — an advanced metric used to judge the percentage of plays that a player achieves a desired outcome, per PFF's grading system — over his last two seasons, not excluding his latest campaign, undermined by injuries to a number of 49ers' offensive linemen and receivers. He was asked Wednesday about his biggest takeaways from 2024, which of course had everything to do with solely in his control.
'Not getting too comfortable within a situation or game,' said Purdy, who alluded to hopes of rekindling how technically sharp he was as a rookie.
His before and after images off the field are the same. The Brock Purdy who made $985,000 in base salary last season walked, talked and acted the same as the dude who just signed a $265 million extension.
Hindsight being 20/20, it was always more likely that Purdy would get paid like a top-10 quarterback. Some posed the question of whether the 49ers could do better. Naturally, the answer is another question: Have they done better? Purdy quarterbacked his team to a Super Bowl practically as a first-year starter and then weathered the unforeseen in back-to-back seasons. Having experienced the ebbs and flows that come with being one of 32 starters at the premier position, he hasn't blinked.
'I could hang my hat on the fact that I've had success in this league and I'm capable of leading an organization all the way to the end — the Super Bowl,' Purdy said. 'I've proved that. For me, I know who I am and I'm going to obviously want to get what I deserve, but also surround myself with guys and not just try to take every penny for myself.'