Those of you plotting Brock Purdy’s demise in the media after the 49ers’ 32-29 win over the Seattle Seahawks, in Seattle, mind you, are going to be disappointed.
Or at least you’ll have a hard argument to make. Purdy is currently tied for the best odds to win Most Valuable Player with Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen. FanDuel Sportsbook has the two at +300. So while it wasn’t pretty, that performance against one of the best defenses in the league leaves Purdy sharing the best odds to win MVP.
At this point, the haters might be gasping for air to point out how “bad” he played.
To be fair: Purdy didn’t play his best game Sunday, going 19 for 29 (65 percent completions), with two touchdowns, one interception, and three sacks (his first three of the year). He (finally) posted a sub-100 passer rating in 2026: 92.5. But get this: when he needed to put a drive together that didn’t start on the Seahawks’ side of the field, he delivered:
That’s all I keep hearing: can he take the team down the field when needed? Yes, the second drive after this was a stinker, thanks to some really strange playcalling by Kyle Shanahan. Regardless, that’s a good defense, one of the best in the NFL, and Purdy drove down the field to take the lead—and then got a two-point conversion when it mattered most. And his bully-ball defense had his back afterward to put the game away.
“I thought Brock did an unbelievable job finding a way there to win at the end,” Kyle Shanahan said following the game. “That’s [Seattle Seahawks] one of the best defenses in the league, one of the best defenses over these last few years.”
The fact that this is the Seattle Seahawks, a division rival and one of the league’s best defenses, is key to that drive. There’s no shame in Purdy calling it a day. Especially when he gets flagged for intentional grounding and other “penalties” that could have killed that particular 49ers’ drive. Except here’s Purdy throwing not one, but two touchdown passes to Brandin Cooks (one was nullified due to a last-minute timeout being called), who the 49ers have had for only two weeks.
The backhanded compliment you may read is how well Purdy navigated a four-man rush, but that means he’s got eight other guys in coverage to look around and figure out where he can go with the ball.
Purdy has just five more pass attempts needed to make the NFL’s all-time career passer rating leaderboard. Even with that sub-100 game, it’s a good guess that when that happens, he’ll be at the top of that leaderboard. If he were going to turn into a pumpkin, it would have happened long before the 1500 pass attempt requirement was fulfilled.
“There’s some ups and downs,” Shanahan said. “By no means was everything perfect. But I thought he was really good in the fourth quarter; there are a lot of times when something wasn’t there, and he made some plays. Hell of a game by Brock”
