After a nightmarish three-week stretch in which Brock Purdy played with a bum shoulder, missed his first game since high school and then returned to start in a blizzard, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback didn’t deal with constant pain or snow Sunday.<\/p>\n
The result? He made the Bears hurt by directing an attack that produced an avalanche of offense in a 38-13 romp at Levi’s Stadium.<\/p>\n
Purdy completed 20 of 25 passes for 325 yards, threw two touchdowns, didn’t have a turnover and posted a 145.4 passer rating. His completion percentage (80%) was the third-highest of his 33-start career, his rating was the fourth-highest and he made history: Purdy now had six career games with a rating of 140-plus, passing two QBs who played before 1960, Ed Brown and Frank Filchock, for the most in NFL history in a player’s first three seasons.<\/p>\n
“He’s been battling,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said. “I was really happy for him today because it seemed like he played his ass off.” More For You 49ers return to ‘prior times,’ but are there enough games left for it to matter? The San Francisco 49ers won’t have much time to relish Sunday’s stomping of the Bears….<\/p>\n
Isaac Guerendo had the 2024 49ers RB experience: He produced, and then got hurt San Francisco 49ers rookie RB Isaac Guerendo shined in his first NFL start, gaining 128… Purdy’s performance came after he had two of the worst starts of his career under less-than-ideal circumstances. In a 23-20 loss to Seattle on Nov. 17, he suffered a shoulder injury and had the third-lowest passing total (159 yards) of his career. After missing a 38-10 loss in Green Bay – the first time he’d missed a game since his junior season at Perry High School in Gilbert, Ariz. – he threw for a career-low 94 yards in a snowstorm in a 38-10 defeat at Buffalo.<\/p>\n
The three-game losing streak severely damaged the 49ers’ playoff chances and also inspired a familiar question to resurface: Is Purdy really that good? Before meeting the Bears, Purdy had the 14th-best passer rating in the NFL, a year after his 2023 rating for the season ranked 14th in NFL history.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Purdy answered by resembling the QB who finished fourth in last year’s NFL MVP voting. The 49ers had a season-high point total, had the most first-half yards in the NFL this season (319) and finished with 452 yards despite playing without a trio of All-Pros in running back Christian McCaffrey, wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk and left tackle Trent Williams.<\/p>\n
“It had a feeling of prior times of how this offense can be,” fullback Kyle Juszczyk said. “Hopefully, we can build off that.” Before Purdy made an on-field statement, he delivered comments in a team meeting Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Purdy addressed the team after they lost by 25-plus points in back-to-back games for just the fourth time in the franchise’s 78-year history, embarrassing blowouts that dropped the defending NFC champions to 5-7 and raised questions about their effort. On Friday, Purdy told reporters that good teams “don’t have excuses” and always “give it their all,” which seemed to be a reference to the 49ers’ need to keep battling despite a host of injuries to frontline players. His message Saturday touched on similar themes.<\/p>\n
“I was just trying to keep it real and remind guys this isn’t easy,” Purdy said. “This job isn’t for everybody. But who we have in this building, we have what it takes. We’ve shown that the last couple of years. And we’ve just got to dig deep and find ourselves.” Purdy threw for 152 yards in the first quarter, the most by a 49ers QB since Jeff Garcia in 2002, had 258 by halftime and posted his eighth 300-yard performance, already fifth-most in franchise history.<\/p>\n
It was stress-free – the 49ers led 24-0 halftime – but not without some pain. In the fourth quarter, Purdy was bent backward in mid-throw when defensive end Darrell Taylor leaped and came down on Purdy’s head with a clothesline hit that drew a roughing-the-passer penalty. Purdy exited for one snap and, when he returned, the crowd chanted his name, his nightmare stretch giving way to last season’s good old days for at least one afternoon.<\/p>\n
“Hearing them sort of have my back like that was pretty cool,” Purdy said. “I love playing for this organization.”<\/p>\n
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