With the 49ers’ offense spiraling after a scorching-hot start, quarterback Brock Purdy has been placed under a microscope like never before during his brief NFL career.
During a conference call with reporters following San Francisco’s 31-17 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, coach Kyle Shanahan was asked if he would consider benching Purdy after his recent struggles, a notion he quickly dismissed.
“No,” Shanahan said. “Because no one just changes their quarterback for no reason.”
On a recent episode of NBC Sports’ “Pro Football Talk,” Mike Florio and Chris Simms discussed Shanahan’s response to being questioned about a potential quarterback change midway through the season.
“At some point, Purdy’s performance gives him a reason,” Florio said.
Simms immediately pushed back at the idea of benching Purdy, explaining that the mistakes the young quarterback has made in recent weeks have been massively overblown.
“I don’t think we’re there yet,” Simms told Florio. “It’s hilarious actually, hilarious. Literally, 14 days ago, people were telling me he was Tom Brady. Now we’re asking, ‘Why aren’t you considering to bench him? I know I said he was Tom Brady 12 days ago, but why aren’t you benching him now?’ C’mon, like calm the eff down.
“Yeah, it hasn’t been great. He made a ton of unbelievable plays in that football game [on] Sunday. Shanahan isn’t going to give up on what he’s seen in totality from Brock Purdy since he took over just because now we had the end-of-the-game interceptions in Minnesota, and he had two bad moments last week. He’s not going to throw that all away, all the good stuff he’s done just because of that. We’re not there yet.”
Simms then detailed why he is confident the 49ers as a whole will rebound following a three-game losing streak that sent them into the bye week at 5-3.
“They’ll go into the bye week; they’re going to get healthy as a football team,” Simms said. “Deebo Samuel will be back soon. They’ll figure out some of the defense. One thing we’ve seen is, yes, Brock Purdy is good. Brock Purdy is not a superstar that’s going to carry the team when the other factions of the strengths of the team aren’t quite working the right way. Hopefully, we can get to that, but I don’t think we’re at [the] let’s bench Brock Purdy conversation yet.”
During the 49ers’ 5-0 start, Purdy posted a 72 percent completion percentage while throwing nine touchdowns and zero interceptions. Purdy’s completion percentage has plummeted to 62.1 percent over the 49ers’ last three games, throwing three touchdowns with five interceptions during that span.
Despite the recent hiccups by the 49ers’ offense, the overall sample size since Purdy took over the starting job has been overwhelmingly positive.
San Francisco will get its first shot at redemption when the 49ers head east to take on the Jacksonville Jaguars in a Week 10 clash.