SEATTLE — It was the perfect pass, and yes, it was shocking. Absolutely shocking. Shockingly perfect?
“I couldn’t believe he threw it,” Kyle Shanahan said later with a small and slightly pained smile.
It was the best pass of Brock Purdy’s NFL career – truly breathtaking to watch, it silenced Lumen Field, it secured the decisive 31-13 victory for the San Francisco 49ers on Thursday and it was the surest sign Purdy has done yet could do whatever it took to get this team to the biggest games and win them.
But it wasn’t long before Purdy threw one of the worst passes of his life that brought the Seattle Seahawks back into this game and started the whole drama in the first place. It felt like a little piece of history happened right then and there, something that is told in documentaries and long books.
You knew it when you saw it. All of Purdy’s teammates certainly knew it. Shanahan’s giddy reaction was evidence that he, too, felt the magnitude of this situation. But Purdy, of course, is the last person to ever engage in that kind of rhetoric, which is probably why he’s able to do it in the first place, following up his brutally deflected pick six early in the third quarter with this majestic one 28-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Aiyuk a few series later.
“It’s not like I messed up and I have to prove to myself or my team that I can make a big play to get us back in,” Purdy said. “It’s nothing like that. We ran the ball really well on that drive. For myself, it was okay to be smart with the ball and take what the defense gives me.
“So we kind of had a rollout, a setup game and I just went through my progressions. I felt the safety on the right side come loose just enough for BA to get behind him and ripped it off. Looking back, it’s obvious that the cash register, which was also open, had a guy open downstairs, that would have been a big win and made us eat the clock and stuff. But I went through the development, trusted that BA was there and just let it rip.”
Aiyuk had a slightly more succinct description: “It’s called a point.”
But as Shanahan pointed out, Purdy Aiyuk shouldn’t fault the Seahawks’ coverage. Safety Quandre Diggs sat right in the middle of the field and moved deeper. The window would be too narrow. George Kittle was completely open on a shorter route. Purdy had to throw hard to beat Devon Witherspoon on one side and also float him over Diggs. It was almost impossible. One degree less and it would have been picked up.
And the last thing Purdy should possibly do after throwing the earlier interception was throw another ball while the 49ers were already in position to kick a field goal, right?
Right?????
“He does that pretty consistently — he’s always trying to get that in,” Shanahan said. “Very rarely does he check it and he’s told he’s missed the deep end. He sees it that way.
“Actually, while the ball was in the air, he proved to us that it was the right decision.”
But while the ball was in the air…
“Oh yeah, we all hold our breath as soon as he lets go because (Diggs) was so deep,” Shanahan said. “But Brock has a certain flair and was able to take it. We took away his safety with a route so that if he could get over him, he knew there was no one left. He made the throw.”
Purdy, as was mentioned almost every day early in his 49ers career, is not known for his arm strength, yet this pitch was, for all intents and purposes, a 95 mph fastball. He was vilified as a “system quarterback,” but that decision was completely outside of what Shanahan wanted from him. He’s a quiet, thoughtful guy, but this play was pure courage and adrenaline. He’s supposedly a safe game manager, but he’s also the guy who threw a touchdown over his body two weeks ago (also against Aiyuk, there’s a theme here).
Purdy has criticized and analyzed every play of his life, and yet where the hell did Thursday’s throw come from?
That was an All-Pro throw. That was, dare I say it, the kind of throw that could win an NFC Championship Game or a Super Bowl. It’s the type of throw that could have beaten the Kansas City Chiefs in February 2020. It was a throw that no 49ers QB could have made since Steve Young or Joe Montana. Point.
That’s why one of his quieter statistical games (21 of his 30 attempts for 209 yards with a touchdown and an interception for a passer rating of 86.7) still seemed like another Purdy threshold moment. While all the back-and-forth over his rankings and status is beyond tiring at this point, this kind of roll – and the 49ers’ 8-3 record and their hold on first place in the NFC West – makes it all count the table .
“I’m definitely not going to say the wrong words…not your question, but the talk about it is so ridiculous,” Shanahan said when I asked if Purdy was now a Super Bowl-caliber QB. “The words ‘elite,’ ‘Super Bowl quarterback.'” I mean, this is the NFL, you have to have a really good football team to even talk about having a chance of getting there. If you have a really good football team, you should have a really good quarterback. If you can do that, you still have better luck with injuries, you still have to play good defense. You have to do everything.
“There were also a lot of great quarterbacks who didn’t win Super Bowls. And those who do, they don’t win on their own. You have to be on a good team and have a good defense. There are so many things that come into play, so I always kind of hate that conversation.”
There was also this earlier litter, which is also part of Purdy’s overall picture. Shanahan blamed himself in part because he gave Purdy a “double call” from his own 4-yard line early in the third quarter – two plays that Purdy could choose between depending on what coverage the defense was calling the line of scrimmage showed. But the Seahawks disguised what they were doing, which put Purdy in a bad game as Seattle fell out of contention. The result was poor, but Shanahan giving Purdy that option deep in her own territory was a sign of confidence.
“It was an unfortunate game,” Shanahan said. “But it didn’t bother him at all. He came right back and made a great play to seal it.”
Jordyn Brooks’ 12-yard pick six brought the Lumen crowd back into the game. After the 49ers completely dominated the first half, the score was 24:10. It could have completely devastated Purdy, who, after all, is still in his first full season as an NFL starting QB. But no, not this guy.
“Ice in his veins,” Christian McCaffrey said.
After the 49ers defense limited the Seahawks to just one field goal on their next two possessions, Purdy and the offense got the ball back. They knew the defense was playing well. The 49ers just had to eat up some time and get another score. It didn’t have to be dramatic. It shouldn’t have been dramatic.
And yet …
“Obviously it sucked going through that, I have to learn from it,” Purdy said of the interception. “But in terms of who I play in that position, that can’t change. I had to keep telling myself that.”
Or he could just keep throwing perfect, shocking, breathtaking, game-winning passes. Purdy has made many excellent throws in his short career. He has great teammates. But he put himself in this position. He put himself in a bad position on Thursday and then moved to a higher position a quarter later. How much higher can it go? How far can he take the 49ers? We see it. Purdy just keeps climbing.
GO DEEPER
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(Photo: Jane Gershovich / Getty Images)