Brock Purdy is now a ‘problem’ as 49ers, QB crash back to Earth

Now, the team — and the quarterback — have crashed back down to Earth, opening up questions about what comes next.

The 49ers lost their third straight game Sunday, this time a 31-17 defeat at the hands of the Cincinnati Bengals. Their seemingly unflappable young gunslinger threw two interceptions for the second straight game.

The loss is driving another massive shift in the discourse around Purdy. Earlier this month, after the 49ers crushed the Cowboys to improve to 5-0, Purdy was being highlighted as a potential MVP candidate, an heir apparent to Tom Brady and so much more.

Now? Purdy taking snaps means the 49ers “have a QB problem,” according to Sports Illustrated. ESPN put that exact same statement in question form on “First Take” when Stephen A. Smith and Shannon Sharpe discussed Purdy on Monday morning. While Sharpe had previously gone biblical in his doubt of Purdy, this time he defended the quarterback, and it was Smith who was professing San Francisco does have a problem under center. He specifically cited the difference in Purdy’s stats with and without Deebo Samuel, who has missed the past two games (and almost all of the Cleveland game) with a shoulder injury.

“I understand that Purdy can play. … I don’t want you to interpret it as me saying the brother can’t play or he doesn’t deserve to be the starting quarterback,” Smith said. “… But when we look at one dude being gone but you’ve got Aiyuk and you’ve got McCaffrey and you’ve got Kittle and you’ve got Kyle Shanahan, and because that one dude is out, you’ve got problems? You’re a problem, I’m sorry.

“How much do you need as a quarterback? There’s plenty of teams in the National Football League … that don’t have those complementary pieces that I’ve just highlighted. They manage. If you are Brock Purdy, you’ve got to find a way to step up.”

The 49ers have undoubtedly missed Samuel and left tackle Trent Williams, who also hasn’t played in the past two games because of an ankle injury. But in the cutthroat world of the NFL, the spotlight shines brightest on quarterbacks in wins and in losses.

On NFL Network’s “Good Morning Football” daily show, Kyle Brandt rhetorically asked what happened to “Bot” Purdy.

“Can we give a shoutout to the humans, to humanity, who are winning the war against the machines? Guys, that robot’s broken,” Brandt said. “… He’s looking at the Surface on the sideline and he’s trying to sync with it. … Right now, the Bot — who I say believe, I actually know is artificial intelligence — he is like the Gateway computer in your mom’s basement when you downloaded Limewire on it and Roller Coaster Tycoon and it’s just sick.”

Brandt continued to try and make this forced metaphor of Purdy-as-AI for more than a full minute, giving praise to humanity again and claiming the league was trying to stop him from saying such. Wearing a Cowboys’ Micah Parsons jersey, Brandt seemed happy to be dismissive of everything red and gold. 

“One more win and we’re not even talking about them anymore. We’re not,” Brandt said. “It’s funny because, ‘McCaffrey has so many touchdowns in a row.’ Who cares about the McCaffrey touchdown streak? It really rings hollow now. If you want to talk about the A.J. Brown streak, we got it. The touchdown streak, I don’t care. He gets handoffs and tosses from the robots and they get handed a loss after every game. That’s it.”

Which is true of the play, sure. But it’s now going to be two long weeks before Purdy and the 49ers can next try to shake off this losing streak. If the Monday morning television circuit is any indication, they’ll have plenty of doubt-filled clips to use as motivation by the time they get to Jacksonville on Nov. 12.