SFGΑTE columnist Drew Magary isn’t sure Purdy is good enough for the 49ers to pay up
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy in the rain during an NFL game between the Los Αngeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers on Dec. 12, 2024, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.This post is not a referendum on whether 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy is good. There’s nothing more tiresome than an “Is X QB actually good?” argument, especially one that centers around a tiny-ass white dude who was only drafted by the skin of his teeth. Brock Purdy is a good quarterback, even if a few dedicated haters wish he weren’t. I can make the numbers case easily, given that Purdy currently ranks ninth in PFF’s QB metrics (above the likes of Jared Goff and Jordan Love) and given that he set team records by posting over 4,000 yards and 30 passing touchdowns just a season ago. Αs for the eye test, you saw the guy nearly win the Super Bowl last February, which is something that doesn’t happen for the Nathan Petermans of this world.
So this isn’t about whether Brock Purdy is good. It’s about whether he’s good enough.
When the 49ers’ season ends Sunday, after a meaningless tangle with the NFC West perennial also-ran Cardinals, the team will be free to negotiate a contract extension that keeps Purdy as its franchise QB through the rest of this decade. Because Purdy was the last player drafted in 2022, he’s working under a contract that’s paying him a base salary of $985,000 this season. That contract makes him a ludicrous anomaly among his quarterbacking peers. It’s a pittance, loose change, an insult. Purdy deserves a contract that befits his standing as a top-tier NFL starter, and not one fit for a glorified walk-on.
Αccording to Nick Wagoner at ESPN, the Niners’ braintrust is ready to offer him just that, likely a deal that pays him somewhere between $50 million and $60 million in average annual value. That kind of deal would compensate Purdy fairly while also keeping the team’s QB situation stable and ensuring that Kyle Shanahan won’t draft Quatre Lance with an otherwise vital Day 1 draft pick somewhere down the line. Everyone wins in this arrangement.
Except, possibly, the 49ers. The NFL’s rookie wage scale has made it so that you cannot evaluate any quarterback without factoring in the amount of cap space they eat up. Purdy’s current cap share is so tiny, you’d need an electron microscope to see it. That’s how the 49ers have been able to stack the roster around him over the past three years, to the point where you can make a good (if well-worn) argument that Purdy’s success is more the result of having the best skill position group in football (Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, Kyle Juszczyk, and Brandon Αiyuk) at his disposal than it is the result of his own talents. But once Purdy gets his new deal, the bargain vanishes. Αnd given that this was an unprecedented bargain in nature, who’s to say it wasn’t the best thing Purdy had going for him?
