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As Brock Purdy’s puzzling decisions and errant throws started to mount, Kyle Shanahan was left with no other choice.
The 49ers’ head coach almost certainly didn’t want running back Christian McCaffrey to put the offense on his back again, but after Purdy’s third first-half interception, the formula became clear.
Feed McCaffrey, beat the Panthers, improve the playoff odds, and deal with the ramifications down the road.
On a night when a crisp and efficient passing game could have resulted in a blowout victory, the 49ers ended up having to pivot away from downfield throws when their starting quarterback gifted the ball to the Carolina Panthers on three consecutive possessions. It wasn’t a forceful pass rush or a lack of checkdown options that compelled Purdy to take deep shots, but rather an apparently brazen mindset coupled with inaccuracy that threatened the 49ers’ chances of winning a game they had no business losing.
“Mentally as a quarterback you want to play aggressive,” Purdy said postgame. “You want to take what the defense gives you, but when you turn the ball over, really three drives in a row, it’s like, alright, you feel it, you feel a little bit of pressure and stuff.”
In his first game against his former team, McCaffrey finished with 24 carries for 89 yards and seven receptions for 53 yards in the 20-9 win. He now leads the NFL in rushing attempts (217) and receptions (81) and has four games with at least 30 touches, all of which are 49ers wins.
Despite having to burden McCaffrey with another significant workload, Purdy still completed 22-of-32 attempts for 193 yards and a touchdown to go along with the three turnovers. While Shanahan continued dialing up passing plays in the second half, Purdy and the 49ers were forced to tone down the aggression.
“You’ve got to think about all of [the interceptions] and why it’s happening,” Shanahan said. “It makes me a lot more hesitant if they’re all bad decisions and stuff. But, he was seeing it right. They were all really good decisions. He just missed the throw on them.”
Purdy’s 6.0 yards per attempt represented his lowest mark in a 49ers victory since he went 25-for-37 for 210 yards and averaged 5.7 yards per attempt in his first career start against the Miami Dolphins back in 2022.
To put Monday’s performance in more context, Purdy averaged at least 7.0 yards per attempt in 15 of his 16 starts in 2023, when he finished fourth in MVP voting. The lone game in which Purdy failed to surpass that threshold came in an October road matchup with the Cleveland Browns, who limited the 49ers’ signal-caller to a 12-for-27, 125-yard effort (4.6 YPA) in a 19-17 San Francisco loss.
After throwing three picks and having his confidence shaken against the Panthers, Purdy’s next opponent is … the Browns on the road.
Purdy could have emerged as a hero in the 2023 matchup anyway after completing three passes for 42 yards on the 49ers’ final drive, but rookie kicker Jake Moody missed his 41-yard potential game-winning field goal attempt.
This year’s Cleveland team is no match for a 2023 squad that won 11 games, but the 3-8 Browns boast the No. 2 passing defense in the NFL, have the second-most sacks in the league, and are led by All-Pro edge rusher Myles Garrett, whose 18.0 sacks are 5.0 more than any other defender (Garrett has 13 sacks in his last five games).
To make matters more difficult, the 49ers – who are traveling on a short week to the Eastern Time Zone – will meet the Browns after they played their best game of the season in a 24-10 win over the Raiders. Head coach Kevin Stefanski has already named rookie Shedeur Sanders the starter for this week, and while Sanders didn’t look all that polished in an 11-for-20, 209-yard showing against Las Vegas, he has the mobility to escape the pocket and extend plays against a 49ers defensive line with the fewest sacks in the league.
Add up all the factors – McCaffrey’s workload, a short week on the road, and an opposing quarterback who can expose the 49ers’ greatest weakness – and it’s clear the onus is on Purdy to engineer a win in Cleveland.
The quick turnaround is far from the biggest test of Purdy’s career, but the matchup with the Browns is exactly the type of game a quarterback with a $265 million contract must control.
Each time the 49ers have called McCaffrey’s number 30-plus times, they’ve successfully eased up on his usage the following week. The 49ers can’t afford to deviate from that plan against the Browns, even if their bye is on deck.
With temperatures expected to be in the high 30s or low 40s at game time in Cleveland, Shanahan and Purdy must crack the Browns’ defense by finding success in the short-to-intermediate passing game while relying on their own defense to generate takeaways, just as it did against the Cardinals’ Jacoby Brissett and the Panthers’ Bryce Young.
At 8-4, the 49ers are only the No. 7 seed in the NFC playoff picture, and the 7-4 Lions are waiting for San Francisco to slip up. Losing to a bad Browns team would muddy the path to the postseason, just as Purdy’s picks created early chaos against Carolina.
The 49ers were able to overcome the giveaways on Monday, but they can’t afford to give a game away to the Browns. It’s Purdy’s responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen.