Chris Simms Says the 49ers Should Not Pay Brock Purdy Market Money

The 49ers should take Simms' advice.
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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We know the 49ers want to keep Brock Purdy. We don't know how much money they intend to offer him.

Purdy is coming off a down season. He lost a whopping nine games and threw 10 second-half interceptions -- second most in the NFL. He doesn't have much leverage in his upcoming contract extension negotiations.

"When it comes to Brock Purdy, I would pay him nowhere near market money," NBC Sports analyst Chris Simms said recently. "Nowhere near. Tua Tagovalioa is the perfect example. No one in football was going to give Tua $55 million per year. Nobody. The Miami Dolphins negotiated against themselves and put themselves in trouble. You can't have the highest-paid player on your football team be one of the biggest problems on your football team in a big game. Purdy is a good quarterback, certainly. But I think a lot of quarterbacks could go into San Francisco and look pretty good. He's what, a top-20-ish quarterback in football? If I'm on the 49ers, I'm offering $30 million per year. I'm offering $25 million. I'm saying, 'Go ahead, tell me who else out there is going to make you the starting quarterback somewhere. Baker Mayfield is making $30 million per season. You're not even close to as good as Baker Mayfield. Sorry.' At some point, one of these teams is going to have to say, 'Just because he's our quarterback doesn't mean we have to make him one of the five highest-paid guys in all of football.' That's insane. It's ruining teams. There's a short list of guys who belong in that category. They better be careful with the Purdy contract."

Simms is 100-percent correct. The Dolphins paid Tua Tagovailoa millions and millions of dollars more than any other team would have, and now that Tyreek Hill is getting old, they're not good. Same thing is happening to the 49ers. Without Christian McCaffrey playing like the Offensive Player of the Year, Purdy struggled, particularly at the end of close games. He cost the 49ers multiple wins with awful interceptions.

The 49ers should take Simms' advice.

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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.