SANTA CLARA — Of all the arguments against Brock Purdy being a viable candidate for this year’s Most Valuable Player award, one of them is ridiculous because it applies to every other quarterback and another is used as a slight even though it’s actually a compliment.
Argument No. 1: Purdy is a system quarterback.
Kind of hard to refute. The 49ers under Kyle Shanahan have devised a system that establishes plays, strategies, and philosophy on how they want their quarterback to play. The other 31 teams have done the same, whether it’s formulated by their head coach or offensive coordinator.
The next team that sends its quarterback into the huddle without a general guideline and unique language that details the operation will be the first. This isn’t street football as a youth, using bottle caps to simulate position players on concrete, or sending a quarterback to simply run around and make something happen.
Purdy is a system quarterback, all right, and it’s a damn good system that plays to his strengths as well as his teammates. Which is exactly how it’s supposed to work.
John Brodie was the first 49ers’ MVP of the Super Bowl era in 1970, a time when quarterbacks got much less detail and called their own plays in the huddle, but it was still a system largely implemented by quarterbacks and receivers coach Jim Shofner.
Joe Montana operated in the so-called “West Coast Offense,” a generic term that was never really used by Bill Walsh. At its core, Walsh’s system used short, horizontal-timing passes as an extension of the running game as part of an offense he devised under Paul Brown with the Cincinnati Bengals to accommodate a weak-armed quarterback in Virgil Carter. Walsh refined his offense at Stanford before being hired by the 49ers.
The MVP award went to Montana in 1989 and 1990, by which time the system had been expanded by Walsh and offensive coordinator Mike Holmgren, with Steve Young reaping the benefits of the Holmgren offense with an MVP in 1992.
Young won another in 1994 (in addition to a Super Bowl), with offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan building on what he inherited from Holmgren, who took his system to Green Bay and applied it to Brett Favre. Favre won MVPs from 1995 through 1997.
Montana, Young and Favre, to my knowledge, weren’t saddled with the label “system quarterback” en route to the Hall of Fame.
Argument No. 2: Purdy is a game manager.
Former MVP Cam Newton on his podcast was the latest to disparage Purdy and others as being “game managers.”
Managing a game happens to be one of Purdy’s best traits. He can speed up and slow down the offensive tempo based on Shanahan’s wishes. Whether it’s a hurry-up offense at the end of a half or a “four-minute” drill to bleed the clock in the final minutes, Purdy can manage a game with the best of them in just his second season.
This is a good thing. One of the best things. He’s going to remind teammates to stay in bounds or get out of bounds depending on what is needed. He is going to make sure plays are run in a timely fashion with no rushing to the line of scrimmage. Players will be lined up on time with pre-snap penalties at a bare minimum.
It’s just one part of the game, but a hugely important one. Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner describes a “game manager” on Twitter/X as “a quarterback that’s doing what many others could do in (the) same situation.”
From the looks of it, there are not as many of those as you think based on the lapses from many offenses in part because their quarterback didn’t adequately manage the game.
Peyton Manning (18) happened to be one of the all-time best `game managers’ for the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos.
A good quarterback runs a football game like Buster Posey ran a baseball game, deciphering a lot of details and responsibility for his teammates into something approaching an art form.
One of the great things about Peyton Manning was watching him manipulate the clock and the game, running the show, and putting everything in the proper position before the ball was snapped or a throw was made.
Manning’s “game managing” helped pay off a record five MVP awards, and one of the best things about his “ManningCast” on ESPN is listening to him break down how offenses are managed on a down-to-down basis.
The most prolific quarterback in NFL history is seven-time champion Tom Brady, who won the MVP three times and was an expert at maximizing his surrounding talent and putting it in position to win. Or maybe you noticed that the New England Patriots and Bill Belichick aren’t quite the same game-day operators they used to be after Brady departed after 20 seasons following the 2020 season.
There are other nonsensical arguments against Purdy, chief among them to claim that his passes don’t travel far enough in the air. Aside from the fact that a five-yard slant from the 25 that breaks free for 70 yards after the catch counts for the same 75 yards as a pass that travels upwards of 50-plus yards and a touchdown, Purdy has actually shown off an above-average deep arm, particularly of late.
Or that Purdy has been carried by his supporting cast, as if Montana didn’t have Roger Craig, Jerry Rice, John Taylor, and Brent Jones, with Young having the same except for subbing Ricky Watters for Craig in his MVP year.
When Atlanta’s Matt Ryan was the MVP in 2016 with Shanahan as his coordinator, his numbers were strikingly similar to Purdy’s this year and his skill position players included running backs Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman and receivers Julio Jones, Taylor Gabriel and Mohammad Sanu.
If Purdy doesn’t win the MVP, it will more than likely be because 1) his numbers slipped in the last four games and he didn’t deserve it; 2) teammate Christian McCaffrey justifiably poached enough votes so it went to someone else; or 3) the perceived importance of the NFL Draft weighs too heavy on the mind of voters and being one-year removed from “Mr. Irrelevant” will cost him support.
Even then the argument will drag on for a while since the announcement doesn’t come until NFL Honors Night on the eve of Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas.
Until then, disregard all the “system quarterback” and “game manager” talk unless it’s used to promote Purdy as an MVP rather than belittle him.
