In a recent 30-13 victory over the New England Patriots, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy claimed his 10-yard split coming out of college was faster than teammates Deebo Samuel and Christian McCaffrey. However, statistics revealed that Purdy’s 2022 split was marginally slower than both Samuel and McCaffrey when they were entering the draft. Despite this discrepancy, Purdy’s speed was evident on the field. In the game, he provided solid performance with runs, picking up seven yards on the 49ers’ first third down of the opening possession, and five more in the second.
Despite his promising performance, Purdy had some drawbacks during the game, a notable one being an interception of his pass intended for Brandon Aiyuk by safety Jabrill Peppers. This mistake could have cost the 49ers an early closure. Kyle Shanahan, the team’s coach, pointed out that Purdy should have thrown the pass earlier, while a regretful Purdy admitted that he had not seen Peppers initially and had been “greedy”.
In the four games of this season, the 49ers did not exhibit the same smoothness in passing as they did last season, when they got off to a flying 5-0 start. The opposition is now more adept at countering Purdy’s favorite throws, including the intermediate and deep crossing routes to Aiyuk. The Los Angeles Rams last week started employing a defensive tactic of heavily dropping players into coverage and rushing only a few. Purdy pointed out that for one play, he had to hold the ball for more than 12 seconds because nine Rams players had dropped into coverage.
Despite the defensive tactics of opponents, Purdy has shown great resilience. He revealed that the Patriots’ safeties did an excellent job at predicting the 49ers’ favorite routes and blocking them. Nonetheless, as the game progressed, Purdy and the 49ers’ passing attack started exploiting adjustments made by the Patriots. By inducing the Patriots’ safeties to step forward in order to block the middle, Purdy began going into deeper territories for throws. His three longest passes were a 53-yarder to Samuel, a 45-yarder to Jauan Jennings, and a 38-yarder to Aiyuk.
Purdy also managed to score a touchdown with a 12-yard pass to George Kittle in the second quarter. Although Kittle initially doubted the play because he thought it was too close to the goal line, he executed perfectly after double-checking with Purdy. The touchdown extended the 49ers’ lead to 20-0, and they continued leading with more than two scores for the rest of the game.
However, it was not a perfect victory for the 49ers. The team suffered multiple injuries including Fred Warner (ankle) and Jordan Elliott (knee), and made a special teams error resulting in a kick-return fumble by Isaac Guerendo, which led to the Patriots’ only touchdown. Furthermore, the 49ers were not efficient within the red zone, as they only managed to score two touchdowns out of six trips inside the Patriots 25-yard line. Kittle acknowledged the team’s need to improve their red zone performance.
