I am interested in Brock Purdy. Not so much because of his individual ability but because of the situation he’s being dropped into. They’ve got a lot of pass-catching talent in San Francisco, along with a puppet-master Jedi to bring it all together.
Between Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey, that’s a pretty awesome group of pass-catching weapons. And we’ve seen some results. Purdy came off the bench to throw for 210 yards and 2 TDs in a big game against Miami.
He has limited size and arm strength – he was the last pick of the draft in April – but Purdy at least was a four-year starter at Iowa State. He played well enough on Sunday that he’ll be given a chance to be their guy.
And if we wind the clock back a few years, Kyle Shanahan has shown he turn modest quarterbacks into decent stat producers. I think specifically of Nick Mullens and C.J. Beathard.
Mullens wasn’t even drafted, yet he averaged 275 passing yards in his 16 starts with the 49ers from 2018-20, with 23 TDs and 21 touchdowns.
Beathard (a third-round pick) averaged 263 passing yards in 11 starts for Shanahan, with 15 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.
Both of those players, by the way, were working with rosters that aren’t quite as good as this one.
I’m not saying Purdy is an every-week starter. There are lots of good quarterbacks out there. But I’m expecting he’ll be good enough that there will be some weeks where the matchup is suitable for Purdy to be plugged in as a serviceable fill-in quarterback.
Over the last 10 years, the worst starting quarterbacks in a 12-team league typically average about 22 points. That’s the average of the last 10 who’ve finished 12th in per-game production (we’re talking a 12-team league, right?). Mullens and Beathard (and to me, Purdy looks similar in quality to those guys) were able to hit that 22-point level in 11 of their 27 starts.
| SHANAHAN WITH LESSER QUARTERBACKS | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | Opp | Result | Yds | TD | Int | Rushing | Pts |
| 2017 | Beathard | Dall. | L 10-40 | 235 | 0 | 0 | 5-30-1 | 20.8 |
| 2017 | Beathard | at Phil. | L 10-33 | 167 | 1 | 2 | 6-40-0 | 16.4 |
| 2017 | Beathard | Ari. | L 10-20 | 294 | 0 | 1 | 3-16-1 | 22.3 |
| 2017 | Beathard | NYG | W 31-21 | 288 | 2 | 1 | 5-15-1 | 29.9 |
| 2017 | Beathard | Sea. | L 13-24 | 201 | 0 | 1 | 6-21-0 | 12.2 |
| 2018 | Beathard | at LAC | L 27-29 | 298 | 2 | 2 | 7-19-0 | 24.8 |
| 2018 | Beathard | Ari. | L 18-28 | 349 | 2 | 2 | 2-7-1 | 32.2 |
| 2018 | Beathard | at G.B. | L 30-33 | 245 | 2 | 1 | 3-21-0 | 22.4 |
| 2018 | Beathard | LAR | L 10-39 | 170 | 1 | 2 | 2-13-0 | 13.8 |
| 2018 | Beathard | at Ari. | L 15-18 | 190 | 1 | 0 | 5-9-0 | 14.4 |
| 2018 | Mullens | NYJ | W 34-3 | 262 | 3 | 0 | 4-(-3)-0 | 24.8 |
| 2018 | Mullens | NYG | L 23-27 | 250 | 1 | 2 | 2-1-0 | 16.6 |
| 2018 | Mullens | at T.B. | L 9-27 | 221 | 1 | 2 | 2-(-1)-0 | 15.0 |
| 2018 | Mullens | at Sea. | L 16-43 | 414 | 2 | 1 | 2-1-0 | 28.8 |
| 2018 | Mullens | Den. | W 20-14 | 332 | 2 | 1 | 5-(-10)-0 | 23.6 |
| 2018 | Mullens | Sea. | W 26-23 | 275 | 1 | 0 | 2-(-2)-0 | 17.6 |
| 2018 | Mullens | Chi. | L 9-14 | 241 | 0 | 1 | 0-0-0 | 12.1 |
| 2018 | Mullens | at LAR | L 32-48 | 282 | 3 | 3 | 1-(-2)-0 | 25.9 |
| 2020 | Mullens | at NYG | W 36-9 | 343 | 1 | 0 | 4-0-0 | 21.2 |
| 2020 | Mullens | Phil. | L 20-25 | 200 | 1 | 2 | 0-0-0 | 14.0 |
| 2020 | Mullens | G.B. | L 17-34 | 291 | 1 | 1 | 1-0-0 | 18.6 |
| 2020 | Mullens | at N.O. | L 13-27 | 247 | 1 | 2 | 1-3-0 | 16.7 |
| 2020 | Mullens | at LAR | W 23-20 | 252 | 0 | 1 | 0-0-0 | 12.6 |
| 2020 | Mullens | Buff. | L 24-34 | 316 | 3 | 2 | 0-0-0 | 27.8 |
| 2020 | Mullens | Was. | L 15-23 | 260 | 1 | 1 | 0-0-0 | 17.0 |
| 2020 | Mullens | at Dall. | L 33-41 | 219 | 2 | 2 | 1-7-0 | 19.7 |
| 2020 | Beathard | at Ari. | W 20-12 | 182 | 3 | 0 | 3-18-0 | 22.9 |
| 2020 | Beathard | Sea. | L 23-26 | 273 | 1 | 0 | 3-10-0 | 18.7 |
—Ian Allan