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Is 49ers QB Brock Purdy Better than Packers QB Jordan Love?

They play in similar systems. Love has started 18 games, Purdy has started 21. Love was a first-round pick, Purdy was Mr. Irrelevant

Grant Cohn

January 20, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) during the
January 20, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) during the / Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
In this story:

Brock Purdy and Jordan Love unquestionably are two of the best young quarterbacks in football. But if you had to pick one, which would you take?

They play in similar systems. Love has started 18 games, Purdy has started 21. Love was a first-round pick, Purdy was Mr. Irrelevant. Love sat for three years behind a Hall of Fame quarterback, Purdy became a starter as a rookie. And they faced each other in the playoffs this past season. So they're comparable.

Purdy's numbers are simply better -- he had one of the best seasons statistically last year of any quarterback ever. Seriously. And he has lost just four games in his career. But he plays with the best roster in the NFL, and it elevates him.

Love struggled at times during the first half of last season, which was his first as a starter. But something clicked in the second half of the year, and suddenly he was just as efficient as any quarterback in the NFL, including Purdy. Except Love can make some truly jaw-dropping throws -- fading away, off his back foot, flicking the ball with his wrist downfield. Purdy can't make those throws.

But Purdy usually doesn't beat himself. When the 49ers and Packers met in the playoffs last season, Purdy threw zero interceptions while Love threw two, including one on the final drive of the game. He tried to be the hero and fell flat on his face.

Which means Purdy presently is the better quarterback.

Published
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.