After a six-game bout of Mac Jones Mania, the San Francisco 49ers finally saw a return to normalcy with Brock Purdy in Week 11. And what a return it was. The 25-year-old rattled off three passing touchdowns and 200 passing yards against the Arizona Cardinals’ defense, helping the 49ers towards their highest single-game point total of the season (41-22), and an improved 7-4 record.
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Seeing Jones scrape together an overtime win against the Los Angeles Rams and average 239 passing yards throughout his eight starts had some worried about the security of Purdy’s role as the 49ers QB1. In the eyes of Maxx Crosby, however, 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 suggested during 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 being consistently hobbled 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,” Crosby outlined.
“I feel like that’s been something with the Niners that they’ve been dealing with for the last seven years,” Crosby remarked while thinking back on all of the various QB experiments that the 49ers have endured throughout the past decade. “Even when Jimmy [Garoppolo] was the quarterback, they were talking about if Trey [Lance] was the guy.”
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, and 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 which point, anything becomes possible when you have players like Christian McCaffrey at the helm.
The 49ers have finally weathered the storm that was caused by Brock 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.
