Are all narratives rooted in reality?
All is quiet right now for the San Francisco 49ers. Fred Warner, George Kittle, and Brock Purdy are all here to stay, and the 49ers are rolling into their offseason activities with just about everyone in tow—a stark departure from last season’s offseason.
Purdy’s extension has a wide range of opinions from analysts and fans. Some would say it’s well deserved (I would say so), while others cling to a narrative about Purdy’s physical gifts and role in the offense. “Dink and dunk” or “captain checkdown” insults have been hurled at the former final overall pick in the NFL draft.
But are those claims true or uninformed?
Pro Football Focus crunched the numbers for quarterbacks who rely on checkdowns from 2024, and the results might shock some people.
With a minimum of 300 passing attempts, only Caleb Williams of the Chicago Bears had a lower checkdown rate than Purdy. Of Purdy’s 428 attempts, only 31 were deemed as a checkdown for a 7.2 % checkdown rate.
Brock Purdy typically is not quick to check down, as he has consistently ranked in the bottom half of the league across his three-year career. However, he’s generated the third-best passer rating (99.6) in that span, fueled largely by his connection with Christian McCaffrey (92.2 three-year checkdown PFF receiving grade), who has been the recipient of 32 of his 86 checkdown targets.
McCaffrey’s presence gives Purdy an outlet to create plays when downfield targets are taken away. Many of McCaffrey’s targets aren’t “checkdowns,” but rather designed routes on a created mismatch against opposing defenses. With McCaffrey being out, that part of the 49ers’ offense wasn’t utilized, with Jordan Mason starting for much of the season.
While Purdy doesn’t push the ball downfield as other quarterbacks, he ranks seventh in the NFL for Adjusted Completion Percentage – the % of aimed passes thrown on target (completions + drops / aimed) with 46.9 percent.
The factors for the depth of targets are Purdy’s willingness to hit more throws outside of the intermediate range and the players available to him in 2024.
Some of the quarterbacks listed with the highest checkdown rates include Jordan Love, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, and Geno Smith. Funny how narratives work, right?