Kyle Shanahan Says Why He Trusts Brock Purdy's Decisions

"Guys get in trouble when they start relying on extending plays before making the play that's there."

Brock Purdy is a phenomenon.

He doesn't merely manage games and complete passes to wide open receivers -- he makes big plays happen. He improvs. He runs around. He does things Kyle Shanahan can't draw up. And yet, he also executes Shanahan's plays to perfection when he has time. And that's why Shanahan trusts Purdy's ability to judge when to stick to the script and when to go off it.

Here's what Shanahan said about Purdy's decision making on Friday, courtesy of the 49ers public relations department.

Q: QB Brock Purdy talked yesterday about in college, he believed he could make something out of anything and sometimes learned that that wasn't true. How would you balance his ability to extend plays and not make mistakes this season?

SHANAHAN: “I think he's done a real good job. He's extended a number of plays. I think he's made a few mistakes. There's a fine line between all of that, but when there's no play there, you always want guys to extend plays. I think guys get in trouble when they start relying on extending plays before making the play that's there. I think that's sometimes things you have to be careful of, especially when you have some playmaking ability like that. And I think that's stuff that Brock has learned and he's done a pretty good job of. There were a of couple times he extended the play last week where he almost got in trouble and he was able to survive it. And I thought one of the scariest ones was the one he threw to, I think it was [RB] Elijah Mitchell] or [RB] Christian [McCaffrey], I forget which one, because he did it to both of them there at the end, but made a great off schedule that ended up being one of his better plays, so he's done a great job so far and hopefully that'll continue.”

Q: Did that happen at the end of second quarter?

SHANAHAN: “It was the second one he did, so I think it was in the third quarter. I can't remember, it was so long ago.”

Q: What was he like off schedule at Iowa State? Did you see a lot of that when you were watching him?

SHANAHAN: “Yeah, he ran around a lot. I think his first play as a freshman or in his first game, I think he broke like a 50-yarder and did some high stepping on it, which you guys see that come out in him sometimes. That's not why we got him, but it's definitely a huge asset that he leaned on in college and that he's been able to lean on too here in the league so far.”

Q: Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said that he's not preparing for Brock Purdy as if he were a rookie. Was there a moment in time when you came to the realization like, yeah, we've got a non-typical first year player?

SHANAHAN: “I felt that during the Miami game. That was a game with a lot of high stakes. We were playing a real good team. He came in real early in the game and we were under a lot of duress, the way that their defense was playing, the way they were coming after us and he didn't play at all like a rookie in that game. And I remember getting home that night and all of us being pretty down about losing Jimmy, that we did get in there with Brock and as I was going to bed and it kind of hit me that he definitely didn't play like a third-stringer today. And we'll see how it goes this week, but we felt pretty good then. And you have to see when you go to his first start, but he looked the same way in practice that whole week and had a hell of a first start. And I think we all quickly forgot that he's a rookie.”

Q: In retrospect with the benefit of hindsight, the first play for Brock against Tampa Bay, the blitz, did that end up in the big picture, being using good for his development there to get him snapped onto the right page to be able to notice that stuff? Or was just a blip?

SHANAHAN: “That was just a blip. I think it was good for that game because he got hit so hard and he didn't get injured from it, sometimes that gets you a lot more alert, but he was just amped up and ready to go and he got a little overzealous on a check and made a quick mistake and he's been pretty good at not making them again, but that was an interesting first play, probably one of the worst guys that you could miss protection against in [Tampa Bay Buccaneers S] Keanu Neal, but fortunately, he got 15 yards out of it.”

Q: Is there a moment maybe the Miami game where he hit TE George Kittle on the cover zero where you look at it in hindsight now and you're like, oh, maybe something clicked for him on a gameday kind of level?

SHANAHAN: “Yeah, I think it happened a number of times in that first game. Like I think there was just a couple times he came out and he had a guy there who was open, but he thought he might be able to get a guy deeper or maybe a guy who could maybe be more open if he looked to someone else and he did that a couple times in that game and he ended up with no yards. And I think that is good that happened, because you have to go in there and understand it. I love the attitude. You'd always take the longer one, chicks dig the long ball and there's a reason for that. It's a lot more fun and easier and that's why I like the mentality of Brock, but if you go out there looking for that every single time, you're going to learn the hard way, so you have to be aggressive, attack what they give you, never hesitate to go if they give you that one, but you can ride with a guy with that type of mentality, that type of attitude, but you don't want people being stupid and decided on Wednesday where they're going with that ball. You have to decide in that pocket and you realize that he is an aggressive dude, but he learned this is the league. People are fast. You have to make the right decision. You can't just go for the more fun one.”