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Fox Sports Ranks 49ers QB Brock Purdy 15th Among NFL Quarterbacks

The 49ers officially made Brock Purdy the seventh-highest-paid quarterback in the NFL this offseason.
Grant Cohn|
Jun 11, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) throws a pass during a team OTA at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
Jun 11, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) throws a pass during a team OTA at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers officially made Brock Purdy the seventh-highest-paid quarterback in the NFL this offseason.

Unfortunately for the 49ers, no one considers Purdy the seventh-best quarterback in the league. Most people don't even consider him in the top 10. In fact, Fox Sports recently ranked all 32 starting quarterbacks, and Purdy finished 15th.

"The 49ers lost their way offensively in 2024, and it wasn’t just because of injuries," writes Fox Sports' Henry McKenna. "Yes, Purdy was sorting out how to manage a locker room, a huddle and a game plan without his best players. But I also think Kyle Shanahan was doing that in a season where teams schematically caught up to the 49ers’ system."

This is fair criticism. It's easy to point out Brock Purdy's statistical regression because he has stats. It's much more difficult to prove that teams have caught up to Shanahan's system, but if you watch the film, you can see that he hasn't evolved much schematically since 2021. That was Mike McDaniel's final season on the coaching staff.

In 2021, the 49ers brilliantly moved Deebo Samuel from wide receiver to running back, and he carried them to the NFC Championship. Since then, Shanahan's best idea has been to give the ball to Christian McCaffrey as much as he can physically handle. Unfortunately for the 49ers, McCaffrey may not be able to handle much more. He broke down last season.

This offseason, Purdy got an extension and Shanahan did not. That means Shanahan needs to prove that he still is the best head coach for the 49ers' franchise quarterback.

The burden of proof is on Shanahan.

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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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