The Unheralded Skillset of Brock Purdy

Brock Purdy has never been short of critics. Few quarterbacks in San Francisco are. Despite a quick rise to stardom after being 2022’s Mr. Irrelevant, many have refused to respect his individual abilities, simply considering him a beneficiary of Kyle Shanahan’s elite system. And even beneath his surface-level numbers – touchdowns, completion percentage and throwing efficiency – lie attributes that are rarely even acknowledged.

In the 2025 season, Purdy was statistically the NFL’s most difficult quarterback to sack. Having the league’s 2^nd slowest average time-to-throw (3.17 seconds), he somehow also boasted the lowest pressure-to-sack ratio (9.0%) – the only quarterback on record to combine those rankings.

Even dating back to his time at Iowa State, he’s never been renowned for his athleticism or elusiveness. So, what makes him so hard to bring down?

Purdy has previously noted one of the major facets of his game that he spends time working on in season, is reading defenses in the film room. Coming out of college with a strong 3.66 GPA, Purdy’s work behind closed doors didn’t take long to translate onto the field, with his immense processing ability allowing him to remain calm and confident in his skillset.

Whilst his pure speed ranks no better than league-average for quarterbacks, high football IQ inside the pocket and nous of when to scramble helped him produce 131 rushing yards and 3 touchdowns on scrambles in his 9 games last year – good for a 83.3 PFF rushing grade, 4^th of all qualified players.

Kyle Shanahan does deserve some of the credit, with his offensive scheme featuring a high degree of play action, pre-snap motion and full-back involvement last season, which typically translates to a cleaner pocket. But Purdy’s predecessor in San Francisco, albeit not known for his athleticism, Jimmy Garoppolo, had a pressure-to-sack rate of 19.8% during his tenure in the bay – twice as large as Purdy’s from 2025.

The counterargument comes in Purdy’s range limitation, which further contradicts his extremely high average time-to-throw. He ranked number 1 in the NFL last year for percentage of passing yards that came after the catch at 29.8%. Being equipped with explosively yards after the catch weapons, such as Deebo Samuel Sr. (no longer with the team), Christian McCaffrey, and even George Kittle, has meant Purdy often uses his time to let intermediate routes develop, as opposed to taking the downfield option.

Perhaps the most impressive statistic for Purdy in all this was his expected points lost per sack, ranking in a league of its own at 1.95 in the year gone by, a full 0.2 below 2^nd (Bo Nix). The benefit of rarely dropping deep to take on the deep ball was that in the rare case pressure did get to him and bring him down, it typically only resulted in a minimal loss.

Despite these impressive feats from the deceptively evasive Purdy, he still would’ve breathed a sigh of relief to find out one half of the Los Angeles Rams’ two-headed monster, Aaron Donald, will miss the teams’ opening day clash in Melbourne. But Myles Garrett, who sacked Purdy last year in Cleveland, will provide the biggest challenge to the 49ers’ quarterback all season, not once, but twice.

A heavyweight battle within the NFC West kicks off in Australia at 8:35pm ET tonight, will Purdy inspire the 49ers to an unlikely win over the Super Bowl favourites?