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What 49ers QB Brock Purdy Needs to Bounce Back in 2025

The book on Brock Purdy is out.

Grant Cohn

Dec 8, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) throws a pass against the Chicago Bears in the third quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images
Dec 8, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) throws a pass against the Chicago Bears in the third quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images / Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images
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The book on Brock Purdy is out.

Play man-to-man coverage and he folds. He's still good against zone coverage -- this season, his completion percentage against zone is 71.9, which ranks fourth in the NFL. But against man coverage, his completion percentage is just 47.6, which ranks 36th in the NFL. That's a problem.

When teams play man coverage this season, Purdy tends to hesitate in the pocket and then scramble because he doesn't have the zip on his throws to complete passes into small windows downfield.

Last season when he faced man coverage, he generally threw to All Pro wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk or Offensive Player of the Year Christian McCaffrey. That's why Purdy's completion percentage against man in 2023 was 62.6 -- second-best in the NFL.

When Aiyuk was at his peak, he was one of the best wide receivers in the league at creating separation. And McCaffrey might be the only running back in football who commands double coverage out of the backfield.

Purdy relied on these weapons. Without them, he's nothing special. So for him to be successful as the 49ers' long-term franchise quarterback, he'll always need an All-Pro-caliber wide receiver who can create tons of separation, plus he'll need a running back who's an elite receiver, too. Maybe Aiyuk and McCaffrey will return from injury next season and be those weapons for Purdy, or maybe they won't.

Either way, the 49ers should know exactly what he needs.

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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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