Just add water, and suddenly the Brock Purdy super-formula seems to get a bit diluted and messy.
Yes, I think last weekend’s slippery performance is enough to come to a single non-partisan conclusion among the half-baked extremes of the endless debate about Purdy’s standing among NFL quarterbacks:
Purdy’s powers are diminished greatly when he can’t get a good grip on the ball. That doesn’t mean he’ll never play a good game in the rain. He’s only days past his 24th birthday, he’s finishing his first full season as an NFL starter and — oh, this point is fairly important — despite his struggles, the 49ers quarterback was absolutely on target for the entirety of the late drive to beat the Packers on Saturday in the divisional-round drizzle, which was his third career playoff victory in four starts.
The 49ers aren’t going into Sunday’s NFC Championship Game against Detroit at Levi’s Stadium with major trepidation about their quarterback. He’s done plenty to earn all their trust. He did plenty at the end of Saturday’s weird game.
But also: Everybody saw how much trouble Purdy and the 49ers’ offense had in the first three-plus quarters on Saturday (and in the rain at Cleveland a few months ago), so now the weather forecast for Sunday looms as quite significant for Purdy and the entire 49ers Super Bowl dream. Even Kyle Shanahan conceded on Monday that the rain seemed to affect some of Purdy’s throws.
“I think it did a little bit,” Shanahan said on his conference call. “I think a couple, even just watching (Green Bay quarterback Jordan) Love, too, watching the first play of the game that he had, on that swing route, the ball slipping, throwing in front of the guy. There’s a couple that got him. So there were definitely a few that got Brock. A few that he probably just missed trying to throw around a guy so it doesn’t get tipped. And a couple that he just can’t explain, that just do happen.
“Usually you have a couple (of misthrows) in a game, but then you add a couple more with weather and a couple more just not being exactly on the throw. He had a few too many of ’em. He also made some helluva-throws, too. Dropping some of those balls over the middle linebacker to get to Jauan (Jennings) was unbelievable. The low-and-away ball to (Brandon Aiyuk) on third down when they have pretty tight coverage on him, it was a helluva throw and a helluva catch that kept us out there after the drop. So he did a lot of good things, too. By no means was he perfect, but it was really cool — when we needed him to be at his best, he was.”
That was all part of the discordant beauty of that victory; every 49ers critic could see 100 reasons to predict their imminent doom and every 49ers supporter could point out 100 other reasons to presume this won’t end until Purdy and his teammates are dancing under confetti at Allegiant Stadium in the evening of Feb. 11.
Let’s go over a few of the most glaring issues and the potential resolutions heading into Sunday’s game, starting, of course, with Purdy …
Issue: If it rains, Purdy likely will have trouble again, and if he has that kind of trouble against the Lions, the 49ers probably will lose.
As of Monday afternoon, the forecast I saw listed less than 10 percent chance of rain in Santa Clara on Sunday, but there are showers projected to hit the area on Tuesday. What if that weather system speeds up and moistens up the conditions at Levi’s that day?
If it’s wet, Purdy and the equipment staff will have to figure out how to deal with this. In the last drive, Purdy seemed less concerned with his grip and just started firing the football, and it worked. Maybe that was the solution all along.
Also, I think there could be a big-picture plus to all this chatter about Purdy’s wobbly game in the rain adding to doubts about him as a championship-level QB. This is a guy who’s spent his whole career having to prove and reprove himself as an unassuming, smaller-framed guy with a less-than-turbo-powered arm who watched many taller guys get recruited, drafted and played over him. Maybe his hands aren’t ideal for throwing a wet football, but I also think this is a guy who quietly has used this kind of chatter as fuel. To hear it all over again in this moment probably won’t throw Purdy off. It likely only makes him better.
Issue: Deebo Samuel’s status is up in the air after hurting his shoulder early on Saturday.
When the 49ers’ offense loses Deebo, things get scrambled. That’s what happened in the Cleveland game when he left after a few plays, and it happened again Saturday. Shanahan usually has Deebo circled in his game plans, especially for big games, and when he loses him early, everything gets jumbled. That’s how Jennings somehow ended up getting a carry to start the second half against the Packers.
But if Deebo can’t play Sunday, at least the 49ers can make that decision by Thursday or so. And build a different kind of game plan, one that doesn’t have to frantically substitute other kinds of players into his spot. There’s nobody like Deebo. But even if he can play on Sunday, it’s very likely Shanahan will draw up a plan that won’t need to be completely redone if Deebo is limited or has to go out again.
Issue: The 49ers never fully committed to the running game on Saturday, with only 24 total runs (six by Purdy), and got outrushed by Green Bay, 136 yards to 111. It seems unlikely that the 49ers could beat the Lions if they get outrushed on Sunday, especially if there’s stormy weather.
This was the first time a Shanahan 49ers team has won a playoff in which it got outrushed. The other two times they were outrushed in playoff games under Shanahan came in their losses in the most recent NFC title games, against the Rams in January 2022 and the Eagles a year later (when Purdy was injured in the first quarter and backup Josh Johnson was hurt soon after).
The Lions, who have held their last six opponents under 100 yards rushing, including an average of just 78.5 in their two playoff victories, almost assuredly will crowd the line as much as Green Bay did. But the 49ers just don’t look like or dominate like their full selves unless they run it a ton, no matter how the defense is playing.
Issue: The 49ers’ secondary, especially cornerback Ambry Thomas and safety Logan Ryan, looked a lot more vulnerable against the Packers than it had for the last few months.
The 49ers’ defense has mostly dominated Detroit quarterback Jared Goff from back when he was the Rams’ QB, but he’s playing with a lot of confidence these days and has some big-time playmakers in Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta. Goff also has a very, very solid offensive line, with All-Pro right tackle Penei Sewell set up to match up against Nick Bosa most of the time.
The 49ers’ potential solutions? Maybe it’s time to get rookie Ji’Ayir Brown back into the lineup after missing two games with a minor knee injury, then watching Ryan get all the snaps on Saturday despite Brown’s reactivation. As for Thomas, the 49ers aren’t likely to start juggling around their cornerback group on the eve of the NFL semifinals. If they had somebody better than Thomas, that player would likely have already been in the lineup. So expect the Lions to target Thomas as much as the Packers did, and it’s just up to Thomas to hold up a little better this time.
GO DEEPER
49ers overcome Packers, rain and their own mistakes: 'It was gut check for everybody'
Issue: Shanahan plays every game pretty close to the vest, believing that randomness is the enemy — that his team can physically and schematically outlast the opponent 90 times out of 100 if he just plays the percentages.
This is fine and mostly right. Shanahan’s commitment to trying to get the last score of the first half and the first score of the second half has led to many, many easy 49ers victories. When the 49ers play it right, focusing so much attention on the middle of the game wipes out a ton of the unpredictability at the edges. The better team should win that segment and win the game.
But if you eliminate randomness, you’re not as dynamic as you might need to be for that 10-out-of-100 game, when the opponent has just as much or more talent than you or a few unlucky things tilt the game away from you. And in the playoffs, of course, it just takes one. Sometimes you need more randomness, not less.
Of course, I’m sure Shanahan would argue that if he went quicker at the end of Saturday’s first half and then had to punt it back to Love and the Packers with lots of time on the clock, the 49ers could’ve given up another score there. That could’ve changed the whole game. Shanahan didn’t get his beloved “lap” when Jake Moody’s field-goal try was blocked and then the 49ers went three-and-out to start the third quarter, but he didn’t give Green Bay’s offense any extra help, either.
You know who always appreciates that? The 49ers’ defense. Shanahan is the unique offensive-minded coach who almost always is more worried about putting his defense in a bad spot than he is about whatever position his offense might get dropped into. It doesn’t always look pretty. On Saturday, it looked absolutely clunky. But of all the issues raised in this column, that’s the least likely to change, at least as long as Shanahan believes that the simplest game is the one that his team will win. Which is almost every game.
GO DEEPER
49ers minutia minute: Jauan Jennings, Dre Greenlaw shined; kick coverage did not
(Top photo of Brock Purdy’s entrance before Saturday’s playoff game against the Packers: Ryan Kang / Getty Images)
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