Brock Purdy threw two interceptions in Atlanta on Sunday, the 49ers turned it over four times, and their 6-0 start ended in a 29-20 loss. It didn't take long for the system-quarterback talk to start up again, a label that has followed him since the day he was drafted.
I understand why. Kyle Shanahan has a long record of getting good play out of quarterbacks nobody expected much from. Jimmy Garoppolo took the 49ers to a Super Bowl in the 2019 season, and he still ranks ahead of Joe Montana on the career passer rating list. Sam Darnold was Purdy's backup in 2023, went 14-3 in Minnesota the next year, and won Super Bowl LX with Seattle in February. Last season Purdy hurt his toe in Week 1, and Mac Jones went 5-3 in his place with a 97.4 passer rating, the best of his career.
So the system is real. I don't think anyone serious disputes that. What I dispute is the idea that it explains Purdy.
Garoppolo, Nick Mullens, C.J. Beathard, Trey Lance, Darnold and Jones all played for Shanahan, and some of them played well. None of them played the way Purdy has. If the offense were doing most of the work, you would expect the quarterbacks who ran it to end up in roughly the same place, and they haven't.
Purdy crossed 1,500 career attempts on Oct. 19 against Washington, which is the minimum to qualify for the all-time leaderboards, and he qualified with the highest career passer rating in NFL history, ahead of Lamar Jackson. He led the league in passer rating and yards per attempt in 2023 and finished fourth in MVP voting. Through the first three games of this season, his QBR was the highest any quarterback had posted to open a season since ESPN started tracking it in 2006.
The Washington game is the best evidence I have. Mike Evans had more receiving yards in the first half than the entire Commanders offense before he went down with an Achilles injury. Ricky Pearsall, Deebo Samuel, Christian Kirk and two other receivers were also out by halftime, which left Purdy without his top six. He went 21-for-29 for 264 yards and a touchdown, and San Francisco won 23-17.
Last season is useful too, because it's about as close to a controlled test as football gets. Same coach and same offense, with two different quarterbacks. Jones went 5-3 and had the most efficient season of his career. Purdy went 7-2 in his nine starts. Then this year the 49ers started 6-0 while losing receiver after receiver to injury.
None of that makes Sunday a good game. One of the interceptions was a throw he should have thrown away, and the other came on a drive that could have put them ahead, when he never saw the linebacker dropping into the lane. Those are real mistakes. But San Francisco also lost two fumbles, played without its top five receivers and still outgained Atlanta 400 yards to 295. One loss in late October isn't much of a case against him.
The 49ers have been through this before. Steve Young played in the offense Bill Walsh built and the team kept running after Walsh left, and he heard the same thing about being a product of it. He won two MVPs, led the league in passer rating six times and retired with the highest career passer rating in NFL history, at 96.8. Nobody talks about Young that way now.
Twenty-six years after Young retired, that record belongs to another 49ers quarterback playing in another well-known system. Every quarterback plays in a system of some kind. What matters is what he does inside it, and nobody has done more inside this one than Purdy.
He isn't Young's equal yet. Purdy has one Super Bowl appearance, an overtime loss. Young has two MVPs and won a Super Bowl as the starter. Purdy still needs a title before that comparison is fair. Whether he's actually good shouldn't be a debate anymore, though.