Brock Purdy: Facing Vikings defense is an 'illusion-fest'

Joe Nelson | Sep 13, 2024

Oct 23, 2023; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) passes against the Minnesota Vikings in the first quarter at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-Imagn Images / Brad Rempel-Imagn Images

Facing Brian Flores' defensive scheme is like trying to figure out how a magician is doing a trick. For 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, Sunday's game in Minneapolis against the Vikings will be an "illusion-fest."

"With Minnesota, they're sort of an illusion-fest," Purdy said Thursday. "They want to make it seem like they're doing this and then post snap they're dropping eight into every which way. They do a lot, it's hard for us to just grasp exactly what they're doing."

Purdy said Flores is "one of the best in the league with disguises" and he called last year's game against the Vikings in Minnesota a "good experience." In last year's matchup, the Vikings blitzed Purdy on 63.6% of his dropbacks and Purdy completed 15-of-19 attempts for 192 yards with one touchdown and one interception.

We know Flores will disguise his play calls from start to finish to try and confuse Purdy, but blitzing might not be in Minnesota's best interest because Purdy is one of the best in the business when teams send more than four rushers.

According to Pro Football Focus, Purdy led the NFL in passing yards (1,762), yards per attempt (10.2) and touchdowns (15) when blitzed in 2023. The yards per attempt statistic is shocking because the next highest against the blitz was C.J. Stroud at 8.7. That means Purdy was ripping passes for 10+ yards more often than not when he was blitzed.

As much as Flores will try to disguise and confuse San Francisco's offense with pre-snap movement, Kyle Shanahan will be doing the same with the 49ers offense. According to NextGen Stats, the 49ers have pre-snap motion on 90% of plays against the Jets in Week 1. They had more than one player in motion on 28 of 69 plays.

Doing that at home is one thing, but using motion to that degree on the road in Minnesota might be more challenging because of the crowd noise.

"At the end, especially, it was a tight game and everything and that place was rocking," Purdy recalled of last year's game in Minneapolis. "For the most part, the whole game they were like that. There's some loyal fans that they got in Minnesota. It's a dome so it just gets loud in there and they bring it. It's an environment where you want to go in and try to obviously do your thing to put up points and score to create momentum and keep them away from being so loud, but it's a great environment to play in."