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Where 49ers QB Brock Purdy Ranks Without the Help of Kyle Shanahan

Stats don't tell the whole story.
Grant Cohn|
Dec 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) warms up before the game against the Detroit Lions at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images
Dec 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) warms up before the game against the Detroit Lions at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images | Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images

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At the NFL Annual League Meeting last week, 49ers owner Jed York said that Brock Purdy is a top-10 NFL quarterback when combined with Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers weapons.

Fair enough. There are lots of statistics that support that claim. However, Jimmy Garoppolo statistically was a top-10 quarterback on the 49ers under Kyle Shanahan as well. Which means stats don't tell the whole story.

Lots of quarterbacks would have looked top 10 on the 2023 49ers, a team that had 9 players rank in the NFL's top 100. So let's try to figure out how good Purdy would be without Shanahan and those weapons.

We saw what Purdy looked like last season with Shanahan but without Christian McCaffrey and Brandon Aiyuk, and he was up and down at best. He seems to need a great supporting cast to be great.

If Purdy were on the Dolphins, would they have won more than 8 games last season? Maybe, maybe not.

If Purdy were on the Seahawks, would they have won more than 10 games last season? I doubt it.

If Purdy were on the Texans, would they have won more than 10 games last season? I doubt it.

If Purdy were on the Steelers, would they have won more than 10 games last season? I doubt it.

If Purdy were on the Broncos, would they have won more than 10 games last season? I doubt it.

If Purdy were on the Buccaneers, would they have won more than 10 games last season? I doubt it.

If Purdy were on the Packers, would they have won more than 11 games last season? I doubt it.

If Purdy were on the Vikings, would they have won more than 14 games last season? I doubt it.

I'm not saying those teams would have been significantly worse with Purdy, either. I think they would have been roughly the same because he's an average starting NFL quarterback. Not above average. Not below average. Right in the middle. The 16th- or 17th-best quarterback in the league independent of Shanahan.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

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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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