49ers QB Brock Purdy can’t escape stray Mac Jones comparisons

Before 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy can enter the conversation for MVP, as his teammates so desperately want, he’ll have to escape the shadow of Mac Jones.

If it sounds strange to compare a player who has yet to lose in the regular season, and is at the top of the league in nearly every statistical category, with a guy who was just benched for the second straight game this season, it’s because the comparison is quite a leap. And yet, Jones and Purdy were mentioned in the same breath during an ESPN morning show Monday.

Former quarterback Dan Orlovsky and former coach Rex Ryan were having a back-and-forth on “Get Up!” over whether Jones was the least of New England’s offensive problems or a major contributor to them. Orlovsky believed the former and argued that Jones was limited by the lack of talented skill position players around him. Ryan believed the latter and argued that Jones didn’t have the talent to win in the NFL.

Orlovsky then fired off his take: “If Mac Jones was in San Francisco, he would be playing like Brock Purdy is.”

Ryan immediately responded with an exasperated “Oh God, no” and then called the comparison “a slap in his face,” referring to the Niners quarterback.

The former quarterback-turned-pundit is not the first to push the idea that Purdy’s success is replicable with any other quarterback because of the 49ers’ offensive situation, and he won’t be the last. But he’s also not the first to compare Jones with Purdy after the San Francisco player had a big win.

Back in January, NBC pundit (and good friend of Kyle Shanahan) Chris Simms used the 49ers’ win over the Seahawks in the playoffs as proof that San Francisco should have selected Jones with the No. 3 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. Simms even called Purdy “a lesser Mac Jones.”

Making the comparison between Jones and Purdy was bad enough in January when the Niners quarterback hardly looked like he was at his best. To make it after Purdy put together a four-touchdown performance in Sunday’s 42-10 win over a historic rival has even less logic to it and only seems to exist in support of the weird belief that the team really should have taken Jones in 2021.