Brock Purdy made his first career start on Sunday against the Buccaneers and made it look easy. He outplayed Tom Brady as San Francisco blew out Tampa Bay 35-7 for its sixth straight victory.
Things were up in the air for the 49ers after Jimmy Garoppolo broke his foot last week, but Purdy filled in admirably in relief against Miami. He was perhaps even more impressive this week against a Buccaneers defense that had all week to prepare for “Mr. Irrelevant” of the 2022 NFL Draft.
Purdy has the 49ers thinking Super Bowl again after another quarterback injury.
95.7 The Game’s Evan Giddings and Marc Grandi of the Audacy Original Podcast “The 415ers” talked about Purdy’s impressive performance that has them ready to sip the Kool-Aid.
“I do want to get back to the man of the hour that is Brock Purdy. Look, Mark, I don’t know about you but I’m beginning to sip the Kool-Aid a little bit, man,” Giddings said (3:33 in player above). “I feel like it’s hard not to at this point just with how good he looked in just about every part of the game he was asked to perform in. Now, the majority of that had to do with the first half, but of course, the 49ers put the game out of reach in the first half large in part due to Brock Purdy.”
Purdy went 16 of 21 through the air for 185 yards and two touchdowns, giving him a quarterback rating of 134 – more than double Brady’s 63.7 rating. He also ran for a touchdown while not turning the ball over.
Those numbers may look a bit low, especially the yardage, but there was a pretty good reason for that.
“He had a number of off-schedule plays where he turned something out of nothing,” Grandi said. “He was really good. You look at the numbers, 185 passing yards, OK, didn’t have a very big day passing the ball, but the Niners were up 28-0 at halftime, he really didn’t play the entire fourth quarter and they were just totally fine with running the ball for the entire second half. So really that 185 passing yards, a couple of touchdowns, no turnovers was really more a half’s worth of work on the football field. So if this was a closer game, he probably gets up to 250+ passing yards. So if you’re looking to kind of maybe poke a hole in those stats, then I would fire back in that way. But he was really good.”
Purdy was able to spread the ball around and throw a few deep balls as well. Eight different Niners had a reception in the win against the Bucs.
“He’s using all of his weapons. He’s not turning the ball over,” Grandi continued. “He did have that one moment late in the first half before the Branon Aiyuk touchdown where there was an interception that was called back because of a penalty and then he hit Aiyuk for the long score before the half. That was the final nail in the coffin making it 28-0 for the 49ers.
“But I’m with you, Evan, he was really good. He backed up what he did in relief of Jimmy Garoppolo last week against the Dolphins with a defense that was preparing for him and only him – and a really good defense at that – and he made it look like it was no problem. He made it look like he was doing it for years. I was incredibly impressed with what we saw from Brock Purdy.”
Purdy and the 49ers will look to continue their push for the playoffs in Seattle on Thursday night.
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