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Kyle Shanahan Needs to Give Brock Purdy More Responsibility

Brock Purdy may not be great, but he's very good, and he has earned the right to set his own protections at the line of scrimmage.

Grant Cohn

Feb 11, 2024; Paradise, Nevada, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) under center
Feb 11, 2024; Paradise, Nevada, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) under center / Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Kyle Shanahan is a control freak.

He wants to make as many decisions for his quarterback as he can, which is one reason he doesn't allow his quarterbacks to change the protections at the line of scrimmage. He wants to keep things as simple as possible for his quarterbacks because he hasn't worked with many great ones.

Brock Purdy may not be great, but he's very good, and he has earned the right to set his own protections at the line of scrimmage.

Film guru Rich Madrid points out the Matt LaFleur gives Jordan Love the power to change protections at the line of scrimmage, and LaFleur used to coach under Shanahan in Atlanta and Washington.

If Love has the power to change the protections, shouldn't Purdy?

I understand why Shanahan wouldn't trust Jimmy Garoppolo to make any pre-snap decisions. The idea of Garoppolo using a hard count, trying to identify a blitz and then resetting the protections on his own sounds like a recipe for disaster, because he isn't a cerebral quarterback, but Purdy. Purdy is one of the sharpest quarterbacks in the league already. Mentally, he can handle as much as any quarterback in the world.

Putting more on Purdy's plate before the snap only will help the 49ers offense, because he's the smartest player on the offense, and whatever they were doing to pick up blitzes in the Super Bowl wasn't working, because the Chiefs generated nine unblocked rushers in the game.

Get out of the way, Kyle. Let Brock take over.

Published
Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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