49ers' Brock Purdy marks return to Philadelphia by emulating Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers
How Brock Purdy would respond to returning to the stadium where he suffered a torn an elbow ligament in the NFC Championship Game last season was one of the most pressing questions surrounding the rematch between the San Francisco 49ers and the Philadelphia Eagles. It is question that looked more pertinent after the 49ers' opening […]
How Brock Purdy would respond to returning to the stadium where he suffered a torn an elbow ligament in the NFC Championship Game last season was one of the most pressing questions surrounding the rematch between the San Francisco 49ers and the Philadelphia Eagles.
It is question that looked more pertinent after the 49ers' opening two drives, which went for minus six yards as the Eagles dictated the first quarter.
But in his still very young NFL career, Purdy has become known for his composure, and his remarkable poise amid the cacophony at Lincoln Financial Field after their early struggles helped him shake off the first two drives and produce a performance that moved him into a position in history alongside two all-time greats.
Purdy finished 19 of 27 for 314 yards and four touchdowns with zero interceptions with a quarterback rating of 148.8 as the 49ers routed the Eagles 42-19 to move within a game of Philadelphia in the race for the NFC's one seed.
It means Purdy, per Josh Dubow of The Associated Press, now has four games this season with at least three touchdown passes and a passer rating of 140 or higher.
The only other two players to achieve that feat are Tom Brady (2007) and Aaron Rodgers (2011). Both Brady and Rodgers went on to win the MVP.
Nobody will be making any comparisons between Purdy and 2007 Brady, who led one of the greatest offenses in NFL history with the New England Patriots during their undefeated regular season, but the 49er attack will occupy a similar realm if it continues to deliver in the same manner it eventually did against the Eagles.
San Francisco scored on six successive drives before the 49ers knelt out the game, with Deebo Samuel scoring a spectacular hat-trick, but Purdy was eager not to over play either his return to the site of his injury or the performance of the offense, insisting it should be seen as the norm for a star-studded group that has scored a combined 84 points in games with the 10-2 Eagles and the 9-3 Dallas Cowboys.
Said Purdy of his return to Philadelphia:
“It was sort of in my mind, I got hurt here. That was this year, late in January, but was it going to be the revenge game or anything like that? No. For me, it was Week 13. We’re going into a new year. It’s a hostile environment. We needed this game. We need this game and obviously we have some really important games coming up too, so that’s where I was at with that. I didn’t want to get distracted by, ‘I’ve got to go back and show everybody what could’ve happened or what could’ve been.’ Got a new team. This is 2023 and that’s where my mind was at.”
He added: “Outside those first two drives, it’s like that’s the Niner football that we know.
"That’s the offense that we know. Everyone’s doing their part, everything’s clicking obviously, some great play calls, and then everyone just makes plays and does it the right way. We protect the ball, defense does their job, that felt good.
"And that’s what we’re always trying to do. That’s the standard that we know and that’s the standard that we’ve set over the years. That’s what we expect out of ourselves.
"I’m not getting caught up in it. It was literally every drive we have to continue to put up points, we have to score. That’s just our mindset, that’s where we were at. Guys made plays. Kyle called a great game. Defense got stops. And that’s our mindset.
"It was like man anybody can score a touchdown at any point with our offense and the guys that we have on offense. Was I going, ‘Alright that’s four in a row, that’s five in a row’? I wasn’t thinking like that. It was where are we at situationally in the game and we just wanted to keep the foot on the gas pedal and try to keep pulling away as best as possible."
Yes, in NFL terms, Purdy is driving a Ferrari and the 49ers are consistently pulling away because of their severe skill-position talent advantage over most teams in the NFL.
However, he has to this point piloted the offense largely with precision while his maturity, combined with the patience he displayed when the offense was struggling early on, allowed him to not only navigate a situation in which many more experienced quarterbacks would have crumbled, but join arguably the two greatest quarterbacks in NFL history in a very select club.
The early-season discourse around Purdy as an MVP was exhausting for many, but it deserves to be a conversation again after he overwhelmingly aced the defining test of his career to this point.
