SANTA CLARA — Brock Purdy began his professional career as Mr. Irrelevant, the nickname given to the last pick in the NFL Draft.
The rookie quarterback out of Iowa State is anything but irrelevant today.
No, Purdy is now the starting quarterback of a team that has legitimate Super Bowl aspirations.
Niners starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo broke his foot at the end of his team’s first drive Sunday. The injury will require surgery and will keep him out for the rest of the season.
Garoppolo’s injury left the Niners without their top two quarterbacks for the rest of the season. Oh, and they were losing 7-3 to the Dolphins, too.
It would have been a fair reaction for the 49ers to pack it in at that point.
After all, the season was clearly cursed, right?
But then something pretty incredible happened:
The Niners won the game, 33-17. And Purdy — that guy taken last in the draft — was solid in relief of Garoppolo, completing 22 of 32 passes for 194 yards after a shaky first quarter.
It’d be easy to say that the 49ers’ chances of competing for a Super Bowl went out the window on Sunday with Garoppolo’s injury. The Niners are on their third-string quarterback — a guy with no NFL experience — after all.
But Purdy played well enough on Sunday that I don’t think it’s prudent to cancel the rest of the Niners’ season just yet.
We might get to that point eventually, but against the Dolphins, Purdy was downright good. Not spectacular, but good. In fact, he was better than his Miami counterpart, Tua Tagovailoa, who entered the game as a legitimate MVP candidate.
The rookie quarterback, who went 30-17 as a four-year starter at Iowa State, did exactly what Niners coach Kyle Shanahan wants his quarterback to do: He kept things positive, both emotionally and on the field.
Purdy’s handoffs and pitches were crisp, and he made most of the easy throws available to him on Sunday. Even his mistakes seemed charmed — his one interception of the game was effectively a fourth-down punt.
Sunday’s win showed that with the 49ers’ top playmakers around him and the league’s best defense backing him, Purdy has a chance to be serviceable, and that’s all the Niners need to maintain a puncher’s chance at achieving their lofty goals.
And I can’t help but think there’s a universe where the 22-year-old quarterback is more than just serviceable.
Maybe we even live in it.
The Dolphins blitzed and blitzed and blitzed Purdy once he entered the game. Of course they did. But Purdy kept making plays, especially on third down.
He extended snaps with his feet. He tried to thread throws into tight windows, and he often succeeded.
After his early struggles, he found a groove, capped by an 11-play, 76-yard, touchdown drive in the final 2:48 of the second quarter. The crucial score before the half gave San Francisco a 17-10 lead going into halftime.
It also gave the Niners belief they could win the game.
By the time the game was over — capped by a late defensive touchdown — Purdy and the Niners’ offense converted six of their last eight third downs.
That’s a brilliant bit of efficiency on the NFL’s most important down. So is it totally ridiculous to think that Purdy can continue to hand the ball off, make the easy throws, and be solid on third down for a few more games this season?
The Niners have five games left in the regular season. At 8-4, two more wins put San Francisco in the playoffs. Three more, including one on Dec. 15 in Seattle, and the Niners win the division and host a playoff game.
We’ll worry about the playoffs if they come. Though it should be noted that while Shanahan poured water on the possibility of Trey Lance returning from his Week 2 ankle fracture for the postseason, he didn’t drown it.
Whether Lance comes back or not, Purdy is the man for the rest of the regular season.
We might find out next Sunday when the 49ers play the Buccaneers that this was all a mirage — success fueled by adrenaline and the lack of a scouting report against the rookie Arizonan. But we can’t forget that Shanahan’s offense turned Nick Mullens, a quarterback who is markedly more physically challenged than Purdy, into a legitimately prolific quarterback who threw for 4,405 yards in his first 16 games as a professional. The only three quarterbacks to surpass that mark in NFL history are Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, and Warren Moon.
Mullens did that with significantly less offensive talent around him, too.
It’s not a big ask for Purdy to be Nick Mullens.
And while Garoppolo had a wonderful season for the Niners, who are markedly worse without him, it’s not ridiculous to think Purdy can be Garoppolo, either. It wasn’t as if Garoppolo was tearing up defenses in 2019, when the Niners won the NFC, or now. Shanahan almost literally didn’t let him throw in the playoffs in both 2019 and 2021 and the Niners still won games.
The 49ers’ offense is a system, not a one-man show. Whether that’s by choice or necessity is up for debate. Regardless, the Niners’ starting quarterback doesn’t need a big arm or elite running ability to be successful at the helm of this attack. The goals are simple: Don’t turn the ball over, and convert on third down and the red zone, two areas where those wonderful, indescribable qualities of quarterbacks can reign supreme.
Shanahan and George Kittle both made reference to Purdy’s guts after Sunday’s game — though they pointed to an anatomical area that was a bit lower.
“He played at a real high level for us,” Kittle told the 49ers’ radio broadcast. “We definitely hit a rhythm there in the second half.”
Whether it’s his … confidence… or something else, there’s certainly something about Purdy that you can’t shake.
The Niners didn’t go into the draft targeting a quarterback, but when they saw Purdy was going to be available with the last pick, they took him. Of course, they had no plans to keep him on the active roster for the regular season, but by the end of training camp, the Niners ate Nate Sudfeld’s guaranteed $2 million contract to keep him on the team’s 53-man roster.
The Niners saw something in Purdy — a little bit of magic. It was something worth exploring.
I think we all saw that same sparkle on Sunday. Perhaps it’s a one-off. But with this 49ers’ defense, which flummoxed one of the NFL’s best offenses Sunday save for two plays, the Niners’ offensive system — and Purdy — can win a few more games, too.
After that, who knows?
Maybe there’s a whole lot of magic with this kid who rapidly went from No. 262 to San Francisco’s No. 1.
