There’s a significant aspect of Brock Purdy’s career arc that flies under-the-radar while issues like his contract and his place in the NFL quarterback hierarchy dominate so much of the conversation around him.
On Radio Row at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, former NFL head coach Jon Gruden shed some light on the topic that generally doesn’t come to the fore with Purdy: He saved the 49ers and head coach Kyle Shanahan.
The 49ers in 2021 traded three first-round picks and a third-round pick to jump to No. 3 overall in the draft where they selected quarterback Trey Lance. That experiment failed for various reasons and Lance was traded to the Dallas Cowboys for a fourth-round pick ahead of his third NFL season.
Part of the reason the 49ers traded Lance was because of Purdy’s emergence as a rookie in 2022 when he went 5-0 as a starter in the regular season and helped get San Francisco to the NFC championship game. Had Purdy not broken out the way he did, and had Lance continued to struggle, there’s a very real chance we’d have seen a regime change in San Francisco.
Because of that, Gruden believes Purdy deserves one of the highest honors a player can get, along with a hefty new contract.
“They should build a statue of him in San Francisco,” Gruden said in a video taken by The SF Niners on Twitter (currently X). “He covered their (expletive), man. They gave up three first-round draft choices to get a guy they got rid of. This guy’s the last pick in the draft and he’s taking you to the Super Bowl. He’s taken them to the brink. He deserves to get paid, and I’ll leave it at that.”
There’s probably some hyperbole in Gruden’s thoughts on a statue, but his point is a salient one. Regardless of where Purdy ranks in a particular QB ranking, and regardless of whether he ever does win a Super Bowl, his play over the last three seasons is a huge reason the 49ers have been able to overcome whiffing on their massive swing for a QB four years ago.
That’s unlikely to play into the team’s calculus on how much he’ll be paid, but it does underscore the equity he’s accumulated with Shanahan and general manager John Lynch in San Francisco.