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49ers Beat Writer Claims Brock Purdy is Better than Matthew Stafford

49ers fans are hunting for reasons to be optimistic this offseason, and certain people will tell them whatever they want to hear.
Grant Cohn|
Dec 12, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) warms up before the game against the Los Angeles Rams at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
Dec 12, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) warms up before the game against the Los Angeles Rams at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images | Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

49ers fans are hunting for reasons to be optimistic this offseason, and certain people will tell them whatever they want to hear.

Their team just went 6-11 and recently lost nine starters including six on defense while taking on more than $85 million in dead cap space. A few days ago, CBS gave their offseason an F -- the lowest grade of any team in the NFL.

And yet, some analysts believe the 49ers are having a good offseason. Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer wrote that the 49ers simply are undergoing the same type of roster reset that the Rams and Bills underwent quite successfully the past couple years. And that's a valid point. The 2023 Rams and the 2024 Bills both took on nearly $100 million in dead cap space and still made the playoffs.

The SF Standard's David Lombardi takes Breer's good point a step further by suggesting that the 49ers are better suited for an organization reset because Purdy is a better quarterback than Stafford. Seriously.

What an absurd thing to think, let alone write and post.

To suggest that the 49ers have gotten superior quarterback play than the Rams the past two seasons is ridiculous. If Purdy and Stafford swapped teams today, the 49ers' Super Bowl odds would get better and the Rams' Super Bowl odds would get worse.

Purdy simply has played on a better team than Stafford the past few seasons. And yet, in the playoffs, when it really counts, Purdy's quarterback rating is a respectable 96.2, while Stafford's playoff passer rating with the Rams is 109.2.

Purdy is a good quarterback -- probably one of the top 12 or 13 in the league. But Stafford is an elite quarterback -- probably one of the top 6 or 7 in the league. That's the truth.

Anything else is pure fiction.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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