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The Jaguars were celebrating around him while Brock Purdy was down on the grass, and the grass was going to pay for it.
Wham-wham-WHAM. Two fists slammed into the midfield turf at Levi’s Stadium. There may have been a bellow, too.
For a player who rarely shows his emotions that dramatically — and certainly not in the lowest moments — Purdy’s outburst after committing his third turnover of the day was a summary of everything the 49ers wasted in Sunday’s 26-21 loss to Jacksonville and everything they still know is possible this season.
It wasn’t surrender. It was competitive rage mixed with the disappointment of knowing you just blew a winnable game and now are 3-1 instead of 4-0.
“I was mad over everything,” Purdy said when asked about that moment. “The opportunity we had right there to get back in the game, what we had done all day, myself with the ball.”
Coming back after missing two games with a toe injury and watching Mac Jones go 2-0 in his place, Purdy threw two interceptions on Sunday, both after the ball was tipped. Then his fumble in the final minutes — forced by former 49er stalwart Arik Armstead — essentially sealed the loss.
In between, Purdy threw for 309 yards and two touchdowns and kept rallying back after each 49er error. Until that last one. Which led to his fists using midfield like a green punching bag.
Point blank: That was one of Purdy’s sloppiest NFL games, whether his toe was still bothering him, he was rusty from the time off, or the chemistry was just wrong with all the new receivers thrust into major roles thanks to the injuries strewn throughout the offensive depth chart.
So was it more about his toe or the rust?
“Neither,” Shanahan said. “It was just what happened on a few plays.”
It was actually probably all of those things. But all of that is also why Purdy is held to the highest standard. It’s not only about his new $265-million deal, but that’s clearly not irrelevant, either.
He’s the most important player on the team, underlined 20 more times after Nick Bosa’s season-ending injury. San Francisco has a lot of vulnerabilities this year, exacerbated by the injuries to Bosa, George Kittle, and others. But if Purdy plays fantastically this season, the 49ers still have every chance to make the playoffs, and then they’ll see what they can do there.
It’s all true. This all rides on Purdy, assuming the 49ers avoid the titanic injury wave that leveled last season. (Are they close to that point this season? Not quite. And let’s see how the next few weeks go — if Ricky Pearsall has to miss any time after his knee issue on Sunday, while the 49ers are waiting for Kittle and Brandon Aiyuk to return).
The 49ers made the Purdy commitment official with the contract, but it’s been unofficially true since his rookie breakout in 2022.
And his teammates don’t mind saying that because they believe Purdy is more than capable of carrying the responsibility.
“We’ve gotta protect him,” Trent Williams said when I asked about Purdy’s reaction after the sack-fumble. “So it’s not on him. He threw interceptions — both of the passes got tipped. (He’s) probably frustrated about the outcome, probably not personally frustrated. He shouldn’t be, anyway.”
But the 49ers aren’t going to win many games when Purdy is a little off on a short throw to Christian McCaffrey (his first interception, which Kyle Shanahan said could’ve been a touchdown if the pass was more accurate), a little late over the middle to Jauan Jennings (his second INT, which was tipped at the line), and a little loose with the ball on the last fumble.
Counting the two picks he threw in the 49ers’ Week 1 victory over Seattle, Purdy now has four interceptions this season in two games. He had 11 total in 16 games during his incredible 2023 season.
“It’s two games, so there’s no absolute to what the problem is,” Shanahan said. “One tip was unfortunate, the one just out of Christian’s reach, wish it would’ve been closer to him.”
But even after also giving up a punt return for a touchdown (the special teams remain a debacle), the 49ers could’ve won this game if Purdy had finished off that last drive. And it felt like he was going to do it.
He had a brilliant 30-yard completion to Pearsall earlier in the game and several laser deliveries to Jennings for important gains. Other throws were uncharacteristically off-target, most of them too high. One incompletion was just a drop by Kendrick Bourne over the middle.
“KB, he’s awesome, I love playing with that guy,” Purdy said. “He’s real, and he’s like, ‘Hey, man I just dropped the ball, took my eyes off of it,’ whatever. Real about it. For me, to JJ, I threw the ball a little late, maybe, it got tipped. Like, just real about it. “
The 49ers’ locker room will take their chances with their quarterback, every week — or every four days, in this case, since they’ve got a huge game in Inglewood against the Rams on Thursday night.
Another sign of a team lined up squarely behind their QB: Kittle spent several minutes sitting with Purdy in the locker room looking not so much like a counselor but a lieutenant backing up his commanding officer.
When I asked McCaffrey about that scene, and his feelings about Purdy’s emotions right now in general, his answer was (for him) uncharacteristically detailed and philosophical.
“I’ve never been part of an undefeated team; I think one team has,” McCaffrey said. “You lose in this league. When you lose, I think it’s about how you respond. Everybody in that locker room’s lost before. Everyone in the locker room has maybe not played their best.
“As a team, we’ve not played our best. The beauty is we play in four days.”
Of course, this isn’t just on Purdy. The 49ers need more from the running game, which hasn’t broken loose this season. They need to try to manufacture a pass rush without Bosa — they had zero sacks and zero QB hits on Sunday.
And they need the special teams not to make big mistakes every week, if that’s possible.
But it all comes back to a QB who can carry them this season and for many seasons. It all points to Purdy, who let us all know he understands and accepts the responsibility when he punched at the ground on Sunday. Then he got up, walked to the sideline, and most definitely started thinking about the next chance.