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Brock Purdy vs. Lamar Jackson: Which Quarterback is Better?

Purdy is an excellent passer who also is a good athlete. Jackson is an excellent athlete who also is a good passer. Both quarterbacks are winners.

Grant Cohn

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Brock Purdy and Lamar Jackson will face each other Monday Night, and the winner most likely will win the MVP Award. Which quarterback is better?

Purdy has better numbers than Jackson, but Purdy also plays with better receivers, better running backs, a better tight end and a better offensive play caller than Jackson. 

Purdy is an excellent passer who also is a good athlete. Jackson is an excellent athlete who also is a good passer. Both quarterbacks are winners.

Which quarterback would Kyle Shanahan rather have? Let's try to figure it out based on what he has said recently about each one

SHANAHAN ON JACKSON: "Everyone knows how elite of a runner he is. But the way he can throw, he’s always been such a good thrower, but what I see is, I think he sees the field well. He’s got a good way of finding the holes in the defense, whether he is scrambling off-schedule or it’s in the pocket and rhythm. He’s just got to decide all the time whether he wants to kill you with his arm or his legs. Both of them are a very good option for him. That’s why he is such a challenge."

Rarely do you hear Shanahan gush over a quarterback the way he gushes over Jackson.

SHANAHAN ON PURDY: "He can see the whole field. There's nothing that he can't do. He has a poise out there. He can see it and react. When he doesn't have time, he finds a way to get it to a check down or he creates and gets something off schedule. He has great command of our offense, but also the amount of plays he makes throughout these two years has been as many plays of any quarterback I've ever been around. He has been a stud."

High praise, but also extremely specific, measured praise.

I'm guessing Shanahan believes he has gotten the most out of Purdy, and he could get far more out of Jackson than the Ravens ever have. And Jackson already won an MVP. Remember, Shanahan had tremendous success with Robert Griffin III before he injured his knee, and Jackson is a much, much better quarterback than Griffin ever was. 

I'm guessing Shanahan thinks Jackson is better than Purdy, but the gap between them might be small.

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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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