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Brock Purdy’s challenges, in Year 3, have been different than those of seasons past. And if there’s a way to wrap those up in a neat little package, it’d probably go like this: Where his first two years were about catching up to the speed of guys riding a runaway freight train of a five-year run, this year has been centered on getting others to catch up to him.
Brandon Aiyuk is out for the year. Christian McCaffrey missed the first two months of the season. George Kittle, Deebo Samuel and Trent Williams have missed time, too.
Over Purdy’s first two NFL seasons, many people wondered what he’d look like without the all-stars that the San Francisco 49ers have around him. In his third year, the 24-year-old believes he’s becoming better as a player for having to find out.
“The new guys, stuff with Ricky [Pearsall] and Jordan Mason, J.J. [Jauan Jennings] running some other routes that are new for him at a different position, for me, I had to see how these guys move and all that stuff,” Purdy told me after the game on Sunday. “Having B.A. and Christian and Deebo and George the last couple years, I know where these guys are supposed to be, and I know our connection. It’s been good. But this is the NFL. Not everybody’s always going to be healthy.
“So, for me, as a quarterback, how can I overcome that, go through my reads and progressions and move the ball and win without those guys on the field?”
The answer? Well, we’re all getting to see it now. And on Sunday, in as close to a must-win game as an NFL powerhouse like San Francisco is going to have in November, Purdy had plenty of solutions that went beyond having that rock-star supporting cast.
That said, it wasn’t easy finding a way to get back over .500 on the other side of the country against a similarly desperate Tampa Bay Buccaneers team. The first half was a rock fight. The Niners had to ride out three missed field goals. A muffed punt created a short field for the Buccaneers early in the third quarter and helped spark Baker Mayfield and a Tampa offense playing without Mike Evans and Chris Godwin.
And, as Purdy said, the Niners—even with McCaffrey back in the lineup, and old warhorses such as Kittle, Williams and Samuel coming off a bye week—had to rely on some guys that you might not have expected the team to at the outset of the season.
But that’s O.K. Actually, it’s better than O.K. If you listen to Purdy, it could even make the Niners better in January (and, they hope, February) for having gone through it.
