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49ers QB Brock Purdy Ranks 14th in NFL.com' Week 18 QB Index

What a brutal yet fair assessment.

Grant Cohn

December 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) passes the football against the Detroit Lions during the first quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
December 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) passes the football against the Detroit Lions during the first quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images / Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
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Brock Purdy may have cost himself some serious money this season.

He wasn't bad, but he wasn't good, either. He was remarkably mediocre. And when the game was on the line in the second half, he was a liability. He often negated all the good things he did earlier in the game.

And that's why Purdy ranks 14th out of 32 starting quarterbacks in NFL.com's Week 18 QB Index.

"We saw both sides of Purdy on Monday night," writes NFL.com analyst Nick Shook. "It started with the poised, accurate passer who simply executes when everything around him is going well, and unfortunately ended with the version of Purdy that tends to sink his own team's chances with occasional misses or poor decisions. He sailed a pass over Ricky Pearsall's head in the second half, resulting in an interception, then doomed the 49ers' comeback efforts with another interception, which was thrown before Purdy checked to see if coverage had deviated from the pre-snap look. To his credit, Purdy did a good job of moving the ball early when targeting a wide-open George Kittle on multiple occasions. Plus, he guided Pearsall into an important role in this offense for at least one night. But I'm left with one uncomfortable conclusion: I don't think Purdy is among the group of quarterbacks who elevate their offenses beyond adversity into elite territory. Sure, the 49ers are missing pieces, but Purdy feels more like a quarterback who will get the job done in a good situation than one who makes the situation great. That's not an encouraging assessment for a guy who's in line to sign a new contract soon.

What a brutal yet fair assessment. Even the compliments were backhanded. Purdy is starting to establish a reputation as a front-runner who can't close. We'll see if the 49ers give him the contract extension he wants.

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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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