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Brock Purdy has Disrupted the Quarterback Market

This is Purdy's legacy.
Grant Cohn|
Brock Purdy has Disrupted the Quarterback Market
Brock Purdy has Disrupted the Quarterback Market

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San Francisco 49ers

Cam Newton said last week that teams aren't looking to draft the next Brock Purdy in the top 10 of the NFL Draft, and he may be right about that, but he's missing the point.

Purdy is showing teams that they don't have to acquire a quarterback with a top-10 pick. He's showing teams that they can find high-level, NFL-ready quarterbacks on Day 3 of the draft. Meaning quarterbacks don't have to be expensive anymore. Suddenly, they're a dime a dozen.

This is Purdy's legacy.

Everyone knows there only are about five elite difference-makers at quarterback in the NFL at any given time. Those guys deserve the big bucks. But every team in the NFL wants a difference maker at quarterback. So they spend through the nose for average quarterbacks such as Kirk Cousins, Derek Carr and Jimmy Garoppolo, just to say they have a franchise quarterback, but they don't, and they go nowhere.

Teams finally are figuring out that it's not smart to spend big money for average quarterback play, because you can get above average quarterback play for the league minimum salary. College football is producing more NFL-ready game managers than ever, and teams can win with them.

It's smarter to draft one of those guys, then to spend a top-10 pick on someone who might be able to develop into a difference maker one day. Because the NFL is not a developmental league -- the CBA doesn't allow enough practice time to develop young quarterbacks. They have to develop in college. And now that they can get paid while they're in school, they have no reason to leave early for the NFL.

Here's a list of busts who were drafted in the top 10 because they were supposed to have the potential to be difference makers:

1. Zach Wilson

2. Trey Lance

3. Sam Darnold

4. Josh Rosen

5. Mitch Trubisky

6. Carson Wentz

7. Jameis Winston

8. Marcus Mariota

9. Blake Bortles

10. Jake Locker

11. Blaine Gabbert

12. Mark Sanchez

13. JaMarcus Russell

14. Vince Young

15. Matt Leinart

Better to miss on a Day 3 pick than a top 10 pick.

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.

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