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Why No Team Wants to Trade for 49ers Quarterback Brock Purdy

The 49ers are in such a difficult position.
Grant Cohn|
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) warms up in the fourth quarter against the New York Jets at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: David Gonzales-Imagn Images
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) warms up in the fourth quarter against the New York Jets at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: David Gonzales-Imagn Images | David Gonzales-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers are in such a difficult position.

They like Brock Purdy and want to keep him around, but they know he's not a top-tier quarterback. At best, he's second tier even though he went to the Super Bowl and was an MVP candidate in 2023.

If Purdy truly were a top-tier quarterback, teams would want to trade for him. But no teams have called the 49ers about him according to The Athletic's Dianna Russini.

Just a month ago, the Raiders tried to trade for Matthew Stafford before he got his extension with the Rams because Stafford is elite and the Rams were taking their time to extend him. Purdy is 12 years younger than Stafford, the 49ers are taking even longer to extend him, and yet no other team is interested in him. They couldn't trade Purdy if they wanted to.

Here's why.

Purdy is a product of his situation. He's a good player, but he might not be a winner on another team. He wasn't even a winner last season on the 49ers -- he went 6-9 and got injured twice. Durability is a question mark for him.

Unless a team has a coach like Kyle Shanahan and a running back like Christian McCaffrey, why would anyone trade for Purdy and expect him to lead them to the playoffs? He couldn't even lead George Kittle, Nick Bosa and Fred Warner to the playoffs last season, and lots of teams don't have players who are as good as those three.

Now the 49ers feel pressure to pay Purdy more than he's truly worth. And when the 49ers fork over all that cash, the rest of the league will laugh and rejoice.

What a tough spot to be in.

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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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