Who is to blame for Brock Purdy being so ready to jump from Mr. Irrelevant on draft weekend to the undefeated starting quarterback of the 49ers heading into the NFC Championship Game against the Eagles?
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni — at least partially.
OK, let’s back up.
Sirianni played receiver at Division III powerhouse Mount Union. Tom Manning played left tackle. They became friends, and both went into coaching. In 2018, then-Colts offensive coordinator Sirianni hired Manning — then Iowa State’s offensive coordinator — to be the Colts’ tight ends coach. Manning spent a year in Indianapolis before going back to Ames, where Purdy had spent his freshman season in 2018 making the Cyclones’ offense his own. When Manning returned to Iowa State, he brought a revamped offense that operated much like the one Frank Reich and Sirianni used in Indianapolis.
That’s why Purdy could go into NFL team interviews this time last year and rattle off a play call like this with no difficulty whatsoever:
Sync right flex, F near, Flash 61 Y Vista left X post with F cards.
Purdy explained that call — and the Manning coaching history that generated it — last year during an interview before the NFL combine. Some college offenses require that level of memorization by the quarterback, but not many. At Iowa State, Purdy had to manage a ton of pre-snap motion. Guess who else has to manage an abundance of pre-snap motion? The quarterback in 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan’s offense.
We’ve spent a lot of time the past few months trying to discern how a QB who clearly has the skill to play for a long time in the NFL fell to the final pick in the draft. The truth? There are multiple reasons. The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman obtained a scouting report on Purdy from a team and then interviewed the author to perform an autopsy of sorts on what was missed. One takeaway? Purdy, who started 46 games in college, may have had too much tape. This allows the evaluator to see the warts again and again, and it may obscure some of the overwhelmingly positive takeaways from a celebrated college career.
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So let’s examine other factors NFL evaluators might have missed. Then let’s use those to see if there are any quarterbacks in the 2023 draft who might be able to follow Purdy’s path from under-drafted to immediate production.
One key factor NFL personnel people appear to have overlooked with Purdy is how much he had to do to simply make Iowa State competitive. In college, Purdy usually was a member of the less talented team on the field. That’s unusual for a QB in a Power 5 program who led his team to a .630 win percentage as a starter. According to the 247Sports team talent composite, which combines the recruiting rankings for every player on a team’s roster in a given year, Purdy started 27 games in which the Cyclones had inferior talent. Iowa State’s record in those games: 15-12. That’s just above .500, but it also means Purdy went 14-5 when his team had equal or better talent than the opponent.
To put those numbers in perspective, Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud — a likely top-10 pick in April — played one game (the 2022 Peach Bowl against Georgia) in two full seasons as the Buckeyes’ starter in which the opponent had a higher team talent composite rating than Ohio State.
Compare that to Purdy’s situation now. He had some quality skill players at Iowa State. David Montgomery was Purdy’s starting tailback in 2018, and Hakeem Butler was the leading receiver. Purdy enjoyed three seasons with Breece Hall as his primary back. But that doesn’t compare with having dual Swiss Army knives in Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel, a field-stretching receiver in Brandon Aiyuk and a magician at tight end in George Kittle. Oh, by the way, the 49ers also have left tackle Trent Williams. Iowa State didn’t have an offensive lineman drafted while Purdy was there. Now he plays with one of the best on the planet.
Many of the flaws in Purdy’s tape involved him trying to extend plays that had broken down and then making an ill-advised throw. In the NFL, most teams have about equal talent to their opponents. Perhaps more weight should have been given to Purdy’s performances when his teammates were facing opponents of generally equal talent.
Meanwhile, Purdy’s familiarity with a popular NFL offense also should have been taken into account by teams looking for a rookie who could jump in and play. Though NFL coaches have adjusted to help players coming from college offenses that don’t require as much from the QB pre-snap, there still is a learning curve. That gives players such as Purdy or Josh Allen, who was required at Wyoming to perform many of the same pre-snap tasks an NFL quarterback performs, an advantage when asked to play early.
So what does that mean for the QBs entering the NFL in 2023? Is there a player who could follow Purdy’s path from low draft pick to critical player on a good team?
There are a few intriguing candidates.
We’ll leave out the players who appear likely to be selected in the first three rounds. Whether they’re ready or not, Stroud and Alabama’s Bryce Young probably will be selected with the idea that they’ll start as rookies. The same could go for Kentucky’s Will Levis. Florida’s Anthony Richardson will need time to develop, but his combination of arm and athleticism could make an executive or coach fall in love and draft Richardson ahead of where he probably should go. At 6-foot-6 and 228 pounds, Stanford’s Tanner McKee has the body type NFL scouts dream about — even if his college numbers pale in comparison to the ones produced by most of the QBs who will be drafted below him.
Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker is coming off an ACL tear suffered in November, but his combination of college production, prototypical size and intangibles should intrigue a team in the upper half of the draft.
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That leaves a host of QBs who don’t appear to be obvious fits in the NFL — including the two who started in the national title game. Meanwhile, there’s a tough-as-nails competitor who finished his career playing for the same coach who helped bring along Aaron Rodgers, the son of a pro arm-wrestler who lit up Division II and a QB who kept throwing touchdown passes in 2022 despite horrific injury luck for his receivers.
Let’s start with the players who just faced off for the national title.
Who could be the next Mr. Irrelevant?
Max Duggan, TCU, 6-1, 211
Duggan’s listed height and weight are almost exactly the same as Purdy’s combine height and weight (6-0 5/8, 212), and Duggan played a similar damn-the-torpedoes style in the same conference. Like Purdy, Duggan emerged as his team’s best QB option as a freshman. But Duggan had to have heart surgery before the 2020 season and played most of the 2021 season with a broken bone and a torn tendon in one of his feet.
Longtime TCU coach Gary Patterson, who was fired midway through the 2021 season, tweeted in November 2021 that Duggan declined surgery so he could keep playing and help the team. While Purdy’s junior season was his team’s best, Duggan’s was a nightmare. And when Sonny Dykes was hired to replace Patterson, he initially chose Chandler Morris as the Horned Frogs’ QB1.
Duggan took over as the starter in TCU’s second game and led the Frogs to a 13-2 record while completing 63.7 percent of his passes and averaging 8.8 yards per attempt with 32 touchdowns and eight interceptions. Unlike Purdy for most of his Iowa State career, 2022 Duggan had the luxury of a likely first-round receiver in Quentin Johnston, who caught 60 passes for 1,069 yards and six TDs.
Also unlike Purdy, Duggan played in the Air Raid offense for all of his college career. Patrick Mahomes has shown that an Air Raid QB can succeed in the NFL, but there is a steeper learning curve.
Max Duggan finished second in 2022 Heisman Trophy voting. (Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)
Stetson Bennett, Georgia, 5-11, 190
It will be interesting to see what Bennett weighs during the pre-draft process. While the NFL has absolutely welcomed smaller QBs in recent years, 190 is very light. Purdy and some of the other recently drafted smaller QBs are thick through their lower bodies, which should theoretically offer more durability.
Bennett couldn’t be more unlike Purdy in terms of the type of talent he played with in college. Georgia almost always had the superior talent. The Bulldogs ranked No. 1 in the nation in team talent in 2020 when Bennett first began starting games. The only two games he played when the Bulldogs had inferior talent were against Alabama in the 2021 SEC title game and against the Crimson Tide in the national title game a month later.
Still, it’s interesting to compare Bennett and Purdy. Their arms seem similar. Both were effective scramblers and runners, but Bennett probably is a tad faster. Like Purdy, Bennett played in an offense more similar to an NFL scheme than a college one. Bulldogs offensive coordinator Todd Monken was Jameis Winston’s offensive coordinator in Tampa and had been on the Cleveland Browns staff the season before he joined Georgia. Bennett, who played in three different offenses in college, should be capable of quickly assimilating any NFL team’s playbook.
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Monken also pointed out something that could make Bennett potentially valuable to NFL teams. “You create value by being able to play and not take reps,” Monken said before the Peach Bowl. “Everyone will say ‘Well, they played the backup this week because in practice they saw something.’ Backups don’t get any reps. I don’t know what they’d see in practice besides running a card. They just make a decision.”
This seems especially important days after watching Chad Henne come off the bench and lead the Chiefs on a 98-yard touchdown drive following an ankle injury to Mahomes.
Here’s another way to compare Bennett to Purdy. What would Bennett have looked like had he played on a team more like Iowa State? The guess? Probably a lot like Purdy. Bennett, his teammates and coaches pointed out that a recognition of the talent around him probably tamped down some of Bennett’s gunslinger instincts. Had he been forced to elevate the level of a team that didn’t always have a talent advantage, his college playing style might have looked very similar to Purdy’s.
Tyson Bagent, Shepherd, 6-3, 210
The Athletic’s Dane Brugler recently profiled Bagent, who smashed records at his Division II school and whose father is the real-life equivalent of the people Sylvester Stallone’s character competed against in the 1980s classic “Over The Top.”
It’s tough to compare Bagent to QBs who played against FBS competition. But we’ll get a much better look at him playing with and against NFL-bound talent next week at the Senior Bowl.
Clayton Tune tied for third in the nation with 40 passing TDs in 2022. (Maria Lysaker / USA Today)
Clayton Tune, Houston, 6-3, 220
Tune has more of a prototypical QB body than most of the players discussed in this story, but his lack of consistent winning during a college career that only feels as if it took 27 years likely will raise questions in the pre-draft process. He may have a satisfactory answer, though.
Tune filled in for injured starter D’Eriq King as a freshman in 2018 and then did the same in 2019. He then spent three full seasons as the primary starter for Dana Holgorsen’s Cougars offense.
The 2020 season was a mess as the Cougars kept having games postponed or canceled because of COVID-19 protocols. The following season, Tune raised his completion percentage from 59.6 to 68.3 and averaged 8.4 yards per attempt while throwing for 30 TDs with 10 interceptions. He led Houston to a 12-2 record. Houston went 8-5 in 2022, but Tune’s numbers were fairly similar. He completed 67.4 percent of his throws while averaging 8.2 yards per attempt and throwing 40 TDs with 10 picks. Tune attempted 76 more passes despite playing one fewer game because the Cougars had little choice but to keep chucking. The biggest statistical difference between 2021 and 2022 came on defense. In 2021, Houston allowed 20.4 points a game. In 2022, the Cougars allowed 32.2 points a game.
Jaren Hall, BYU, 6-1, 205
Hall started two seasons at BYU, and it’s impressive that his completion percentage and touchdown-to-interception ratio went up (with only a slight dip in yards per attempt) when you consider that his No. 2 receiver from the previous year (Gunner Romney) played only two games because of injury and the player who was leading the Cougars in receiving in October (freshman Kody Epps) was lost for the remainder of the season to injury in game eight.
Hall still averaged 8.4 yards per attempt and threw 31 TD passes with six interceptions despite never having the kind of weapons around him that he’d expected going into the season. He spread the ball around to good receivers, but more talent around Hall could produce bigger numbers.
Dorian Thompson-Robinson, UCLA, 6-1, 205
Thompson-Robinson was one of the toughest QBs in the country. He kept taking hits, and he kept playing. Another example of his resilience? Even though it was obvious UCLA coaches were trying to replace him with UCF transfer Dillon Gabriel last offseason, Thompson-Robinson hung in and bided his time. When Gabriel instead wound up transferring to Oklahoma after Caleb Williams’ transfer to USC, Thompson-Robinson reassumed his role at the head of the UCLA offense and raised his completion percentage from 62.2 percent in 2021 to 69.6 in 2022.
Thompson-Robinson’s numbers were fairly similar in each of his final three seasons. We’ve never seen him outside of Chip Kelly’s offense, so it’s unclear whether his talents were maximized by that scheme or if he might thrive playing a different style.
With all that said, here is the QB who Brugler and I agree has the best chance to follow in Purdy’s cleat marks …
Jake Haener, Fresno State, 6-1, 200
Just watch this final sequence from the 2021 Fresno State-UCLA game and try not to love Jake Haener. (You’ll also get a good look at Thompson-Robinson.)
UCLA coach Kelly called what Haener did to his team one of the best QB performances he’d ever seen. Just watch this final play, and remember that Haener made it shortly after taking a shot that would have knocked a lot of QBs out of action for weeks.
JAKE. HAENER.
JALEN. CROPPER.LET’S GO @FresnoStateFB!#AtThePeak | #GoDogs pic.twitter.com/c3IiCF4IEQ
— Mountain West (@MountainWest) September 19, 2021
But Haener’s career was a lot more than that one game. He was remarkably consistent — and remarkably tough. We might be talking more about Haener now had he followed former Fresno State coach Kalen DeBoer to Washington last offseason. It would have made sense. Haener started his career at Washington before transferring to Fresno State. He could have returned as a conquering hero. Instead, Haener elected to stay at Fresno State and play for Jeff Tedford. Michael Penix Jr. transferred to Washington from Indiana and wound up leading the nation in passing yards per game while playing in DeBoer’s offense.
Playing for Tedford allowed Haener to learn from the same coach who mentored Aaron Rodgers at Cal. But it didn’t seem like that connection would last long when Haener broke his ankle in Week 3 at USC. Instead of shutting it down and preparing for the draft, Haener sought a second medical opinion and found that he could play despite the injury.
He returned to the lineup in October and led Fresno State, which was 3-4 at the time, to seven consecutive wins. On the season, Haener completed 72 percent of his passes and averaged 8.3 yards per attempt with 20 TDs and only three interceptions.
Purdy has been successful so far in San Francisco for reasons that we outlined above, but part of his success has to do with the same intangible qualities that made Iowa State coach Matt Campbell willing to turn over the team to Purdy as a true freshman in 2018. Those qualities — intelligence, toughness, the ability to inspire teammates to be more than their talent suggests — are the same ones Haener showed over and over again at Fresno State.
So no matter where Haener gets chosen in April, there is a great chance he might wind up being just as relevant as Purdy at some point down the line.
(Top photo of Brock Purdy: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)