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Steve Young Says the 49ers Don't Use Brock Purdy's Legs Enough

Thank you, Steve.

Grant Cohn

Jan 7, 2023; Paradise, Nevada, USA; Steve Young attends the game between the Las Vegas Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs at Allegiant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Jan 7, 2023; Paradise, Nevada, USA; Steve Young attends the game between the Las Vegas Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs at Allegiant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
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The greatest running quarterback of all time, Steve Young, had some interesting advice for 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan this week.

Young went on 95.7 The Game with Mark Willard and Dan Dibley recently and said that Shanahan doesn't use Purdy's legs enough.

"I said during the season a couple of times, I think (Kyle Shanahan) should call RPOs for Brock,” Young said. ’We should put him on the run out of the huddle where he’s going to carry it. The threat that he needs to bring -- look, we understand the processing power, but the game today is there are free first downs with your legs, free touchdowns, especially in the fourth quarter."

Thank you, Steve. Please shout this from the mountaintops. It's nearly impossible to win a Super Bowl in today's NFL if your quarterback isn't a rushing threat because all the best quarterbacks use their legs in the biggest moments these days.

"(Purdy) can do 80 percent of what Jayden Daniels can do with his legs," Young continued. "You have to call plays for it. You have to threaten the line of scrimmage. If you're going to go to the Super Bowl, into the future you have to have a quarterback that's going to threaten the line of scrimmage every time they have the ball in their hands. These playoffs reminded me of that truth again. I think Brock can do that. It puts him at risk more because the ball is in the hands at the end of the play more often. That's risky, but I think it's got to happen."

I agree. Every good offense needs an RPO and zone-read package in today's NFL. Both teams in the Super Bowl use RPOs and quarterback runs frequently. Meanwhile, the Shanahan offensive scheme didn't make it past the divisional round of the playoffs this season.

Get with the times, Kyle.

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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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