After a bout of Mac Jones Mania, the San Francisco 49ers returned to normalcy with Brock Purdy in Week 11. And what a return it was.
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The 25-year-old rattled off three passing touchdowns and 200 passing yards against the Arizona Cardinals, helping the 49ers to their highest single-game total of the season (41-22), and a 7-4 record.
Seeing Jones scrape together an overtime win against the Los Angeles Rams and average 239 passing yards in his eight starts had some worried about how secure Purdy’s role was as the 49ers’ QB1. In the eyes of Maxx Crosby, though, there was never a moment when Purdy’s future with the team was in doubt.
“Brock Purdy is their guy. They paid him. They believe in him,” Crosby said in the latest episode of his self-titled podcast.
“That doesn’t take anything away from Mac Jones. Obviously, you’ve got to give Mac his credit, but I think it goes to tell you, with all the injuries that they’ve had, I think Kyle Shanahan has just proved how good a coach he is,” he added, giving credit to Mac.
Few teams have been able to be as consistently competitive while also consistently hobbling as the 49ers have in recent years. Nevertheless, they’ve still managed to produce a 6-3 postseason record since 2020.
According to Crosby, it’s this kind of stillness in chaos that has defined the Shanahan era in San Francisco. “Shanahan is a great coach who deserves credit,” he said.
“I feel like that’s been something with the Niners that they’ve been dealing with for the last seven years,” Crosby added while recalling all the QB experiments that the 49ers have endured in the past decade.
“Even when Jimmy [Garoppolo] was the quarterback, they were talking about if Trey [Lance] was the guy,” he said.
When you look at it from that perspective, the 49ers’ willingness to give Purdy a five-year, $265-million contract becomes a lot more understandable. After dealing with a revolving door of faceless quarterbacks, the franchise finally found a signal caller who wouldn’t throw them out of the game. In the NFL, that’s priceless.
Moving forward, San Francisco is projected to be a problem for just about anyone. Barring any more catastrophic injuries, they appear to be destined for the playoffs. At that point, anything is possible when you have players like Christian McCaffrey at the helm.
The 49ers have finally weathered the storm that was caused by Purdy’s turf toe, and they somehow managed to come out of the other side of things with a winning record and a reasonable shot at the NFC West championship. All that’s left now is for them to make the most of it by cashing in on what remains of this talented yet aging offense.
