The San Francisco 49ers moved to 3-0 on the season and 2-0 in the NFC West with a 36-30 win over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday.
At one point, it seemed the 49ers would run away with the game but instead played with their food a little bit, allowing the Cardinals to sneak back into the game late. San Francisco were able to stave off Arizona, securing a needed victory before the schedule gets tough with the Broncos and Seahawks on the horizon.
But before we look too far ahead, let’s take one last look at
Week 3 and review what we can learn going into Week 4 and beyond:
Brock Purdy is the league MVP… through 3 games
You can tell that Purdy is feeling himself when he’s trying a jump pass along the sideline. That was simply a heat check for the quarterback. But 49ers fans can also see that Purdy is playing out of his mind.
With his four-touchdown performance in Week 3 against Arizona, Purdy closed one of the best three-game stretches. Sunday marked the third time in Purdy’s career where he’s gone a stretch of three games with nine or more passing touchdowns and one or fewer interceptions:
- Weeks 13-15, 2023: 10 touchdowns, 1 interception
- Weeks 13-16, 2025: 9 touchdowns, 1 interception
- Weeks 1-3, 2026: 9 touchdowns, 1 interception
But what makes this stretch so impressive is how he’s doing it with such a hampered receiver room. After Mike Evans went out with an injury in the second quarter, Purdy was without his top four receivers (Evans, De’Zhaun Stribling, Ricky Pearsall, and Demarcus Robinson) and didn’t target Deebo Samuel once. Despite it all, Purdy completed 8-of-12 passes for 127 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
It helps that George Kittle exists, but Purdy was moving downfield with Jordan Watkins, who was banished to the shadow realm just a week ago.
Maybe it’s just a hot three games, and he settles a bit, but maybe this is who Brock Purdy is now. And if that’s the case, his MVP case will only get stronger as the season goes on.
And the 49ers offense is having a historically good start because of Purdy
Purdy’s hot start has worked wonders for the 49ers offense. They’ve not only produced the most points scored through three games under Kyle Shanahan, but with their 36 points on Sunday, the 49ers are up to 98 points this season, one of the hottest starts in franchise history:
- 1949 – 115 points
- 1998 – 112 points
- 1948 – 112 points
- 1983 – 107 points
- 1965 – 103 points
- 2026 – 98 points
Maybe something to note: the 49ers have never won a Super Bowl in a season where they scored more than 100 points in its first three games. San Francisco has, however, won two Super Bowls (1984 and 1994) when scoring between 95-99 points in the first three games, so Shanahan might have found the sweet spot.
But, look at some of the quarterbacks who led the offenses above: John Brodie in 1965, Joe Montana in 1983, and Steve Young in 1998. Some of the greatest in 49ers history. And now it’s Purdy who has led the 2026 offense to a historic start.
Out of curiosity, I looked at how this start compares to when Shanahan led the Atlanta Falcons to a franchise-high 540 points in 2016 with an offense that featured the league MVP Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, and Devonta Freeman. That Falcons team scored 104 points through its first three games of that season. This 49ers team is just one touchdown behind that pace.
This isn’t to say the 49ers are going to score 534 points through 17 games (the franchise record is 505 points, though), but just to put into context just how good of a start the San Francisco offense is. Is it sustainable? We’ll find out. But these three games are all we have to go off of, and so far, so good.
Oh, and don’t forget the offensive line
Purdy and the offense’s success can be tracked back to the most scrutinized position group entering the regular season: the offensive line. That success continued against the Cardinals on Sunday.
I mean, where do you want to start? The fact that the 49ers are the only team to not allow a sack yet this season or the 49ers have only had four plays from scrimmage that resulted in negative yards (non-kneels)? Both of those can be traced back to the front five.
Purdy has only been pressured on a quarter of his 90 dropbacks this season. When he is pressured, he’s only completed 43 percent of his passes, but he’s yet to make a mistake. But on the 75 percent of the dropbacks he’s been kept clean, Purdy has been nearly flawless, throwing all nine of his touchdowns with a passer rating of 142.8.
It can only help the confidence that Purdy has been exuding, knowing that three-fourths of the time, he’s going to have time to find the open receiver he has seemingly on every play.
But the offensive line is getting it done in the run game as well. The only four negative plays the 49ers offensive line has allowed this season are:
- a Christian McCaffrey run for a loss of three on Sunday
- a Kaelon Black run for a loss of two on Sunday
- a McCaffrey reception for a loss of one in Week 1
- a Black run for a loss of one in Week 2
The offensive line has been as good as anybody could have asked through three weeks. It makes sense that the 49ers have scored on nearly 60 percent of their offensive drives this season, because the offensive line keeps the offense moving forward.
Pass rushers needed
Yes, Nick Bosa and Mykel Williams should be back within the next few weeks. Sure, the Matt Judon addition helps. But the 49ers are going to need more than that. Much, much more than that.
For the 49ers fans here that pay attention to the San Francisco Giants, the 49ers pass rush reminds me of the 2026 Giants bullpen. Everybody knew the Giants bullpen needed help entering the season, but Buster Posey and the Giants front office didn’t do anything to address the need, and unsurprisingly, the Giants bullpen was bad.
The same could be said for the 49ers pass rush. After a 20-sack season in 2025, all the 49ers did in the offseason was draft Romello Height and wait for Bosa to get healthy, and that was enough on the edges, banking on Bosa staying healthy.
Sunday against Arizona, the Bosa-less pass rush pressured Jacoby Brissett 14 times on 54 dropbacks, sacking him twice. Even with Bosa, the 49ers pass rush wasn’t showing much, recording zero sacks in Week 1, and while the 49ers sacked Malik Willis four times in Week 2, two of those sacks were Willis running himself out of bounds behind the line of scrimmage.
The talent gap needs to be significantly closer between Bosa and whoever you would have as the 49ers’ second pass rusher. Judon closes that gap a little bit, but Judon didn’t have a sack in 368 snaps for the Dolphins and Bills last season and hasn’t recorded a sack since Week 17 of the 2024 season.
Maybe there’s a pass rusher out there, and let’s just choose a name at random here; let’s say the Chase Young skill range would help close that gap. John Lynch and company have until Tuesday, November 10, at 1 p.m. to find help on the edges.
