LAS VEGAS — Let’s be honest: Brock Purdy doesn’t look like an NFL quarterback.
He’s six feet tall with an unremarkable build. Purdy looks likelier to be a media member or a season-ticket holder than a league MVP candidate.
And on the field, there’s nothing that overtly sets Purdy apart.
He’s quick, sure, but he’s not a fast runner.
Yes, he can throw it deep, but he doesn’t have a big arm that can cut through the wind, rain, and tight windows of opposing defenses,
And while he’s accurate, he can still throw passes that baffle receivers, coaches, and fans.
In short, Purdy is not Patrick Mahomes.
The Chiefs’ quarterback — who will face off with the 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday — is a great scrambler, he can throw the ball a country mile, and at 28 years old he has two MVPs and two Super Bowl victories.
Mahomes is Superman. Purdy sure seems like an everyman.
And that difference can seem mighty daunting heading into the biggest game of the year — a legacy-defining championship contest.
But the 49ers’ quarterback possesses a superpower of his own. It’s been hiding in plain sight:
No one processes the game better or faster than Purdy.
And that superpower might be even more valuable than any physical attributes he might lack, relative to his peers.
It’s certainly a superpower that’s allowed a second-year quarterback to take over the 49ers’ starting quarterback job and be on the precipice of a title less than 30 starts into his NFL career, despite being the last pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.
It’s a superpower that, when ultimately recognized by his coaches and teammates, elicited a downright fanaticism and unwavering loyalty towards No. 13.
It’s a superpower that could tilt the Super Bowl the Niners’ way on Sunday.
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The Chiefs are a defense-first team this season. Mahomes is still great, sure, but the Kansas City offense is not the same high-powered attack the Niners faced in Super Bowl LIV.
This Chiefs defense, however, is as sound and dynamic as any in the game today. Kansas City defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s goal is to confuse the quarterback with blitzes and late coverage rotations — the Chiefs’ defense rarely runs what they show the offense before the snap.
For opposing quarterbacks, it’s a big issue.
For Purdy in the Super Bowl, it should be easy work.
“I can’t tell you how many snaps I’ve seen when there’s a late [coverage] rotation on the snap… He recognizes [it] and knows exactly where to go with the ball,” NFL Films senior producer Greg Cossell, the sport’s preeminent Xs and Os analyst, told me. “Your primary read can change when there’s late rotation. Where you go with the ball is not the same. And he’s able to process that in a fraction.”
“Fractions matter in the NFL.”
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Now, Purdy’s superpower is, undoubtedly, a natural talent — a knack that he’s had all his life — but maintaining and harnessing it requires a lot of work behind the scenes.
“He’s going through each look. He’s going through each coverage,” 49ers tackle (and Purdy’s roommate) Nick Zakelj told me. “He puts in so much work off the field that his success on the field comes as no surprise.”
Purdy credits some of this acumen to playing flag football as a kid in suburban Phoenix. The speed of that game forced him to process what was happening fast. By the time he started playing tackle football at age 12, “the game was slower.”
Purdy is also a case study for the 10,000-hour rule. He started for four years at Iowa State, giving him a lengthy college football career — a true rarity in this modern age.
Sure, the college and professional games might be quite different, but after 1,467 collegiate pass attempts over 48 games, there wasn’t a look, trick, or blitz Purdy hadn’t seen when he arrived in the NFL.
And Purdy’s diligence in learning Shahahan’s playbook inside and out immediately after being drafted by the 49ers — despite the fact he entered his first training camp as the fourth quarterback, likely to be cut before the start of the season — built the confidence to trust his instincts on the field.
Purdy might not have the NFL Draft pedigree, but he has proven to be precisely what Shanahan wants in his quarterback. He’s an extension of his coach — an offensive coordinator on the field.
“Brock locks down all the data — he’s like ‘I own the data’ — now call a play, call anything. I’m not going to be overwhelmed,” said former 49ers quarterback and Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Young. “Brock gets it. There are certain quarterbacks who are great throwers of the football — super talented — who don’t get it, and they never will. [But] He gets it… and you can lean into it.”
“That’s why Kyle trusts Brock, and that’s fundamental.”
“He’s grown up at the position, and he sees the position in a way that’s similar to what Kyle sees,” 49ers run-game coordinator and offensive line coach Chris Foerster told me. “There’s a match. There’s a marriage. How Kyle says it, he gets it. And then he’s able to do it.”
It is no easy task to download all the information Shanahan provides and then apply it in the field. Just ask Matt Ryan — who won NFL MVP in 2016 with Shanahan as his offensive coordinator:
“With Kyle, there’s a lot of volume in what they do offensively,” Ryan, now with CBS Sports, said. “[Purdy] allows them to use the full breath.
“Sometimes you spend all this time learning, you start to lack in other areas — I haven’t seen that with Brock. I think it’s very impressive to not have it slip into [his] play.”
Yes, for some quarterbacks, paralysis by analysis can kick in on the field. They lock up, thinking instead of feeling the game.
For Purdy, the opposite has proven true. Sure, he knows everything that’s happening on the field, but his ability to process it all at a rapid pace allows him to be aggressive against any defensive coverage.
“Whether he’s right or wrong, he’s right, because his eyes are in the right spot,” Ryan said.
“That’s what makes him so great,” Zakelj said. “He’s really consistent on a play-to-play basis, but he also has the courage to take a shot. If the look is open, he has the confidence in his ability and in his teammates to take advantage.”
That elite processing ability also allows Purdy to make up for some of his physical deficiencies, too. He’ll attempt throws that the big-armed quarterbacks make, despite having the kind of arm talent that hints he should never attempt such a pass.
“I’ve been studying quarterbacks for a really long time. I have been taught by really smart quarterback people, including Bill Walsh. [Purdy] has an amazing feel for being able to throw balls to spots before receivers even begin their break,” Cossell said. “I’m not sure people realize how tough that is.”
“People get excited about quarterbacks when they run around. I think that kind of throw — and he’s made a bunch of those this year — to me those are “wow” throws as much as Patrick Mahomes running around.”
Of course, there’s a downside to Purdy’s aggressiveness, brought on by his elite-level processing.
This is a quarterback who in the NFC Championship Game threw across his body on the run to a covered Jauan Jennings in the middle of the field, after all. Jennings had to rise up and make a one-handed catch while falling backwards.
The play worked — a moment of brilliance if only because it worked.
“No words,” Foerster said of the play. “That’s not ‘no comment.’ Just ‘no words.’
So yes, sometimes Purdy can be too aggressive.
“I had to learn the hard way… “The right play might be checking it down or throw it away,” Purdy said Wednesday of his over-aggression, particularly in the 49er’s Christmas loss to the Ravens.
It all makes the criticism of the 49ers quarterback as a “game manager” — a quarterback doesn’t actually make plays, but merely makes easy throws to his great teammates, who do all the heavy lifting for the offense — quite ironic.
Yes, Purdy has great teammates, but the implication of that “game manager” criticism is that any NFL-caliber quarterback could do what Purdy is doing, especially in a Shanahan offense.
For anyone who watched the five 49ers quarterbacks who proceeded Purdy in San Francisco, the accusation is hilarious.
And yet it will persist, likely regardless of what happens in Sunday’s Super Bowl.
But while Purdy can’t seem to win with public perception — they, unlike him, can’t wrap their minds around that normal-looking guy being so good — he can win what actually matters: the big game.
So yes, Mahomes will likely do a few things that make your jaw drop (remember his horizontal pass in Super Bowl LV?). But Purdy’s superpower — now that you know what to look for — will be on full display, too.
Who will win in the battle of brains vs. brawn?
I wouldn’t bet against Purdy. He might already be three steps ahead.
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