49ers flip Brock Purdy script

And yes, Purdy did indeed lead the team, completing 13 of 16 passes in the second half for 174 yards and a touchdown. He also added 49 rushing yards on the ground and picked up three first downs with his feet. 

The masterful second half led several around the 49ers to start to make fun of the “game manager” insult that was often lobbed at their QB. The 49ers themselves posted three photos of a celebrating Purdy on Instagram with this caption: “Managed our way to the Super Bowl.”

Players had similar quips after the game: “Heck of a game manager. Wow. Managed the heck out of that game, boy,” linebacker Fred Warner said to NBC Sports Bay Area. “He’s the reason we’re going to have a chance to win us a ring. I love him.”

“Not a bad system quarterback,” fullback Kyle Juszczyk sarcastically told the San Francisco Chronicle. “You know, a system quarterback who ran around all day and made plays.”

Multiple local columns about Purdy focused on the same theme, with the San Francisco Chronicle headline noting Purdy’s “shredding” of his reputation. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.) The Athletic riffed in its headline about how exactly Purdy managed the game. Bay Area News Group declared Purdy is “a step away” from occupying similar space in Niners lore as Hall of Famers Joe Montana and Steve Young.

Even one of Purdy’s biggest critics from last week, ESPN’s Ryan Clark, completely flipped his script on Purdy. After saying on national TV last week that it had pained him to pretend all season that Purdy was good, Clark heaped praise on the Niner signal-caller’s second half — while making it clear that he’s still constantly ranking Purdy against his peers.

“What Brock Purdy did was separate himself from Tua Tagovailoa. He separated himself from Dak Prescott. He separated himself from Justin Herbert. He separated himself from Kirk Cousins,” Clark said on ESPN’s “Get Up” on Monday morning. “All of these people can put up numbers. The things that will echo in the eternity of football is what you do at this time of the year. How you stack up against the best of the world.”

Clark added: “He couldn’t have been in a worse position that he made the best position for a proving ground of why he’s the franchise quarterback. He did every single thing that you have to do to win a championship football game. For all that Dan Campbell did, for all that the Detroit Lions did, if this kid doesn’t step up and be the absolute best player in Santa Clara yesterday, we aren’t having this discussion anyway.”

What Clark is getting at is the extremely thin line that separates the discussion we are having about Purdy on Monday from what could have been. What if Lions head coach Dan Campbell elects to kick a field goal on either of his two fourth-down decisions, not giving the 49ers a chance at a big stop? What if Lions receiver Josh Reynolds doesn’t drop the pass on the first of those two fourth downs? What if Purdy’s third-quarter heave was caught by Lions defender Kindle Vildor, instead of it bouncing off his facemask and into Niners receiver Brandon Aiyuk’s hands for a miraculous catch?

Any of those things flip, and the discussion is different. But they didn’t, Purdy had the second half of his life and now the 49ers will play on the world’s biggest stage against the Kansas City Chiefs and the best quarterback of this generation, Patrick Mahomes.