Brock Purdy, MVP candidate? It...

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — In the million-points-of-data football world we live in, sometimes the best assessment comes down to just trusting the feel of people who usually know better. That’s the data point — having confidence in another person’s confidence. And when it comes to Brock Purdy, we should have listened to head coach Kyle Shanahan earlier and believed more of what he was saying.

When I watched Purdy dice up the Dallas Cowboys in a 42-10 win on Sunday, I couldn’t stop thinking about an interaction I’d had in Lincoln Financial Field in January, a few hours before the NFC championship game kicked off between the San Francisco 49ers and Philadelphia Eagles. Milling around the stadium tunnel, I ran into a longtime member of Shanahan’s inner circle and we tucked into the doorway of a utility room.

I was curious about quarterback Trey Lance, whose future as a 49er seemed less certain with each passing week. Only a few games had passed with Purdy as a starter, but he was already doing everything Shanahan wanted from Lance: winning, leading, growing — but most importantly, executing the job precisely as Shanahan was designing it. Even in the face of that, it was still hard to wrap my head around the last pick in the 2022 NFL Draft pulling the rug from under Lance, who had an immense amount of draft capital invested in him. Was this really happening?

“I think Trey is gone,” Shanahan’s confidant said. He then took one hand and raised it over his head.

“Kyle’s confidence in Brock is here,” he said, stretching toward the ceiling. “And it’s getting higher every week.”

At the time, it felt more like a statement about Lance’s development than anything else. Something had to be going terribly wrong if the celebrated offensive genius of Shanahan was being permanently shifted into the hands of a rookie seventh-round pick. But a little more than eight months later, it’s starting to feel like it was always about what was right rather than what was conventional. Or maybe Purdy’s performance made it about both. He was the right quarterback for this franchise and Shanahan, and once the wins started piling up, he became the only sensible man for the job.

Whatever it was, there’s little debating it anymore. Purdy has shed that “last pick” stigma. And he’s replaced it with a level of play that is thrusting him into the league’s early MVP conversation. Not just due to the undefeated 49ers looking like the NFC bully this season, but also because Purdy is now the offensive centerpiece of it. He’s officially a problem. And it has been that way since he stepped into this role. As Peter King pointed out this week with a great stat, Purdy is now 13-0 in the games that he has played three quarters, including when he was thrust into duty against Miami last season after Jimmy Garoppolo's injury. His lone blemish? The NFC title game loss that saw him knocked out of action with more than seven minutes left in the first quarter.

Yes, that success comes with caveat that San Francisco has a juggernaut of a roster built around him. And yes, he’s playing for a head coach who has gotten a lot of juice out of all manner of quarterbacks over the course of his career. But it’s worth noting that Shanahan has had his quarterback failures, too. And that these 49ers haven’t looked this dominant and balanced since the 2019 season that produced a Super Bowl run. That should resonate with those who are looking for Purdy comparisons right now, too.

As one longtime personnel evaluator familiar with Purdy said of him Monday: “He can be Jimmy with less injuries and less turnovers.”

That didn’t sound like the most appealing ceiling, but the evaluator pressed on.

“Jimmy was 12 inches away from winning a Super Bowl,” he said. “He was the highest-paid player in the NFL when he did his first big deal. They both have a quick release. They’re both accurate. They both have short arms and average running ability. Neither had big-time physical tools and both were successful with the scheme and the players around them. It’s not a comparison just because they both played for the same team and coach.”

That’s not exactly going to appease some who prefer a more stratospheric projection — which can range anywhere from Tom Brady (due to the late draft selection) to Drew Brees (due to the size comparison) to Joe Montana (due to both). Both statically and from a Super Bowl vantage, all of those ceilings seem a tad grandiose at such an early stage and such a limited sample size. But if you go back to King’s 13-0 record when Purdy plays at least three quarters, the stats in that window are impressive beyond the unblemished record.

In that span of games, Purdy completed 245 of 356 passes (a 68.8 completion percentage) for 3,125 yards, along with 29 total touchdowns (25 passing, four rushing) and only three interceptions. Projected into a full 17-game season, Purdy’s stat line would look absolutely MVP-worthy when paired with a dominant winning record: 4,086 passing yards with 37 total touchdowns (32 passing, five rushing) and four interceptions.

That’s the stuff of a cornerstone quarterback. It's precisely what the 49ers believe they have. When I spent time with Shanahan in camp, we talked about Purdy starting for four years at Iowa State and the difference that can make for quarterbacks. Specifically, how special quarterbacks in the NFL are typically high-level performers when it comes to two traits: First, they know an offense inside and out and can execute it seamlessly when everything on a play goes right; and second, they can make a play right when it goes wrong.

One of the things that Shanahan pointed out about Purdy was that Iowa State isn’t an assembly line of NFL players. And when that’s the case, a quarterback is going to be surrounded by things that go wrong, especially when he’s a four-year starter who plays 47 games of meaningful snaps. Compared to most quarterbacks who enter the NFL, that’s a lifetime of making things right. And it’s not lost on his teammates.

“He played a ton of snaps [at Iowa State],” tight end George Kittle said. “He’s had the highest of highs. He’s had the lowest of lows. He’s had to come back. He’s had to play through tough seasons. Just when you experience all the highs and lows in college, when you get to the NFL, you’re kind of prepared for it. I’m not trying to compare college to the NFL, but he’s just had so many reps, it’s allowing him to play like a vet.”

That was never more evident than Sunday night, when Shanahan’s assessment of Purdy’s performance boiled down to basically one mistake: an early misfire on a pass to wideout Brandon Aiyuk that Shanahan called a second time, leading to a long gain. Aside from that, he played a nearly perfect game against elite defensive talent. And he did it on a prime-time stage, when everything leading into the moment suggested it would be a significant measurement on where he stands in the league’s quarterback hierarchy.

Four touchdown passes and a historic whupping of a rival later, Shanahan called it “pretty flawless.” Defensive end Nick Bosa said it was proof of Purdy “playing as one of the best quarterbacks in the league.”

That’s a whole new conversation for Purdy. Not to mention an assessment that is getting tougher and tougher to argue with.