Getty 49ers QB Brock Purdy (left) and coach Kyle Shanahan
For 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, as good as quarterback Brock Purdy was last season, there is plenty left to improve. After all, Purdy is only 24 years old and coming off his first full season as a starter in the NFL. He threw for 4,280 yards with 31 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, leading the league with a quarterback rating of 113.0, but he is just now starting to get into what may be one of the most important offseasons of his career.
It’s hard to say how long the 49ers will be able to keep their current Super Bowl-contending group together, not with the payroll pressures a team with as much talent as San Francisco faces. They’ll get another run in 2024, though, and Shanahan is excited about the fact that Purdy, after requiring elbow surgery last offseason, will have a healthy offseason this time.
“I’m just pumped that Brock gets an offseason,” Shanahan said at the NFL owners meetings, per 49ers Web Zone. “I mean, his first year he didn’t get much of one just because he was the third quarterback. Last year was all about he couldn’t really throw with us until training camp. And this year, he just got married, he’s fully healthy.
“He’s going to come back here in a couple of weeks, and we’ll get going.”
Shanahan Wants Purdy to be ‘More Consistent’
Ah, but what can be expected from the quarterback who showed everything in 2023? Purdy earned a Pro Bowl spot and was fourth in the league’s MVP voting while also getting the 49ers to the brink of a Super Bowl championship—it was, after all, the defense’s inability to slow the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes that cost the 49ers a title.
Shanahan’s message to Purdy is, simply, one of consistency.
“It’ll just be getting more consistent on everything,” Shanahan shared. “I mean, when you have a whole season to review yourself—[in 2022], he had seven games. When you get a whole season, there’s so much tape to go over that it takes a long time to get through.
“And you always want to be perfect, and no one ever will be. But when you have the reps that he’s had now, he can review that stuff and take it to the field. When we get back on April 15 together, we’ll watch, we’ll do all the quick game, we’ll do all five steps, all seven steps, we’ll do the play actions, we’ll do the movement, that stuff that [quarterbacks coaches Brian] Griese and [Klay] Kubiak will take him on the field and be working at every day.”
49ers Bracing for Big QB Payday
In the backdrop for Purdy is the looming specter of a contract extension. Purdy is under wraps for this year at the very low price of $985,000, and $1.1 million next year, but he will soon be due a new contract. That deal is sure to see him join the ranks of the NFL’s QB elite, surely around $50 million per year.
Purdy’s relatively inexpensive deal has been one reason eh 49ers have been able to collect so much talent. That window will soon close. Owner Jed York said he’s braced for it.
“It’s what the market is. Brock is going to ask for something that no one has ever asked for before,” York said, via Cam Inman of the Mercury News. “I don’t know how many players are making over $40 million [per year] as a quarterback right now.”