As a quarterback, leading your team to a Super Bowl is one of the great achievements in the NFL.
With 32 teams vying for just two spots, it is often a hard slog to reach the pinnacle of the sport. So much so that in 58 seasons of the Super Bowl era, 12 of the 32 teams have never won it.
Plenty of outstanding players at the all-important position such as Philip Rivers, Tony Romo, Warren Moon and Randall Cunningham never found themselves competing in the big dance at all throughout their distinguished careers. Hall-of-Famers like Dan Marino and Jim Kelly got close but fell at the final hurdle.
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In just his second season, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy can already say he’s led his team to a Super Bowl.
In his first season (2022), Purdy led San Francisco to a conference championship game, which the 49ers lost to the Philadelphia Eagles. In that game, Purdy sustained a painful elbow injury which forced him to the sideline.
Yet despite this early success and the 21-5 record (regular season and playoffs) as the 49ers’ starting quarterback, there’s a somewhat strange discourse surrounding Purdy that has followed him all throughout this season.
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THE GAME MANAGER TAG
During his MVP-calibre season, Purdy has been continuously referred to as a game manager.
To be labelled a game manager is the ultimate backhanded compliment in American football.
It essentially means a quarterback that does a good job in limiting turnovers, but won’t make many, if any game changing plays to help his team, instead relying on the talent around him.
It implies that opposition defences won’t pay that particular quarterback a whole heap of respect, because his success is mainly due to the supporting cast around him.
For some reason, there are many fans and pundits out there who believe Purdy still falls into this category.
Granted, Purdy has the game’s best running back in Christian McCaffrey as well as stud pass catchers Deebo Samuel and George Kittle, plus one of the game’s top offensive minds as his coach.
This is the main counter-argument against Purdy; not that he’s bad, and he’s certainly the best 49ers quarterback of this current era, but that he is taking advantage of the perfect system for his skills.
The stigma has been exacerbated by the likes of former NFL MVP Cam Newton.
When Purdy was the MVP favourite during the season, Newton was quick to raise his doubts whether he deserved the award when calling him a “game manager instead of a game changer”.
Newton doubled down on that opinion after San Francisco’s NFC championship win over the Detroit Lions, a game which Purdy helped his team erase a 17-point deficit with some exceptional throws and impressive scrambling with his legs.
“I’ve never said Brock Purdy was trash,” Newton said.
“What I did say is Brock Purdy is a game manager. That’s not hate.
“That’s just what I feel to be facts. I still reserve the right to say this: To be labelled a game changer, Brock Purdy has to be the best player on the offensive side of the ball. And that’s not the case.
“Christian McCaffrey (is the best player). If you really want to just be honest, if you add in the defensive talent, Brock Purdy is the 10th best player on this team.”
ESPN analyst Ryan Clark said just a couple of weeks ago that the hardest thing he did this season was “act” like Purdy deserved to be discussed in the same sentence as fellow MVP candidates Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen.
There have been many other experts who have continued to doubt Purdy this season, including The Ringer’s Steven Ruiz, who declared he’d stop covering football if Purdy led the 49ers to a Super Bowl victory.
Many critics believe Purdy just dumps it off to the likes of Samuel and Kittle and let his stars do the work with ball in hand – and this is partially true. Much of his success comes from yards after the catch, as this is the key to the Shanahan system’s success.
However statistics from this season show Purdy was one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the league on attempted passes over 20 yards downfield, so he’s not a one-trick pony.
Purdy has never been one to lash out at the criticism or the lack of respect from some corners of the NFL world.
Even in an interview with ESPN’s Michelle Beisner-Buck days after the NFC Championship win, he said he prefers to let his play do the talking.
“I think it’s sort of funny, just because we’re winning,” Purdy said.
“I think over time I might get some respect, but more than anything it hasn’t been about proving people wrong or any of that, it’s just been about proving myself right.
“Over time I’ve told myself I’m good enough and worthy enough to be playing at this level, and over time I’ll prove that to myself.”
After the win over Detroit, teammates and 49ers defensive stars Fred Warner and Nick Bosa were quick to poke fun and make sarcastic digs at the Purdy’s game manager tag.
Bosa was a little more matter of fact.
“I don’t pay attention to the media much, but whoever is talking s**t about Brock Purdy what do you have now?” Bosa said.
“He’s the best game-manager in the league.“
THE JOURNEY
There’s no question Purdy has proven he’s good enough.
Perhaps his journey to the NFL is in part a reason he’s a been a victim of the tall poppy syndrome that has seen plenty of fans and analysts keen to tear him down and wait for him to fail.
His story and path into the NFL should be enough to endear himself to most, however it’s not the case.
Purdy handed in a successful four-year career at Iowa State but entering the 2022 NFL Draft, wasn’t on many teams’ radars.
It appeared as if he would go undrafted until the 49ers handed their card in to make Purdy the Mr. Irrelevant of the 2022 draft.
Mr. Irrelevant is the term coined for those players selected with the final pick in the draft. Very rarely do they go on and make a career in the league and in a lot of instances, don’t even make that team’s roster for the start of the subsequent season.
Purdy not only stuck on the roster, making the team as the third-string quarterback behind initial starter Trey Lance and backup Jimmy Garoppolo.
Lance was regarded as San Francisco’s future at quarterback, with the team using three first-round picks to move up and select him at number three in the 2021 NFL Draft.
Lance showed glimpses in his rookie season in limited opportunities, but the 49ers wanted to add some depth to the QB room in the off-season, hence they took the low risk move to select Purdy with the 262nd and last pick in the draft.
According to San Francisco CEO Jed York, by the second week of training camp, Shanahan believed Purdy was the best quarterback on the roster.
Despite Shanahan’s opinion, the franchise wanted to at least see what they had in Lance considering the capital they gave up.
But as fate would have it, Lance suffered a season ending ankle injury in Week 2, thus forcing Garappolo into action and Purdy into the back-up role.
After Garappolo was injured in Week 13, it was Purdy’s moment – and he hasn’t turned back.
Purdy and the 49ers went unbeaten over the rest of the regular season and playoffs until the NFC title game loss to the Eagles.
His savvy play, his calmness under pressure and command of the Kyle Shanahan offence was obvious, and the 49ers decided he’d be the guy going forward.
That decision was all but confirmed when both Garappolo and Lance went elsewhere, with the latter traded to Dallas for a low round draft pick.
The call was justified this season, with Purdy leading the league in a number of passing metrics.
WHAT MORE CAN HE DO?
Purdy will shut up the majority of the critics with a win against the Chiefs on Monday (AEDT).
In fairness, the noise has definitely quietened down as the playoffs have progressed, as he has recovered from poor performances in parts of both wins over the Packers and Lions to star in the second half.
Purdy led the league in passer rating (113), third in passing touchdowns (31) and fifth in passing yards (4280).
He is also tied for the most games with a passer rating over 130 (6) and 140 (4) in a season.
All he’s done since entering the league is win.
Not only did he prove he was one of the league’s best quarterbacks in the regular season, he has shown out in the playoffs too, playing exceptionally in the moments that matter to record two come from behind wins to set up the date in the Super Bowl with the Chiefs.
Shanahan can’t believe the criticism his quarterback has to face, but knows Purdy is able to cancel it all out and focus at the job at hand
“This is what I love about Brock. Last pick in the draft. Takes us to the conference championship game twice and this Super Bowl in two years,” Shanahan told respected NFL reporter Peter King.
“Getting talked about for MVP. And the dude, he doesn’t have to work at not listening to it or trying to stay humble or trying to not get caught up in how life is changing. You know why? He doesn’t care.
“He really has a true foundation and knows who he is and who he wants to be. That is rare for any human. He’s a special player.”
Shanahan isn’t the only person in the building to gush over the down-to-earth quarterback.
His teammates believe he’s the real deal as well.
“It’s just like hitting the lottery, you get a player like that with the last pick of the draft,” left tackle Trent Williams told the AP.
“Literally like playing the lottery and winning the Powerball when it’s at $2 billion.”
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