Kawakami: What Brock Purdy’s worst night and candid self-assessment mean for the 49ers

SANTA CLARA, California. — No one wanted to say that Brock Purdy would show up for a night like this, but honestly, it probably was. No one in the 49ers organization wanted to see him throw four interceptions against the Ravens. No one in the red and gold wanted Purdy to go from MVP favorite to the main reason they got crushed on national TV.

No one in a 49ers uniform wanted Purdy to hit this bump in the road at full speed and splashing at full speed.

But yes, everyone knew that something like this was bound to happen sooner or later, and better now than in the playoffs. Subconsciously or not, the 49ers were prepared for this. Purdy’s storybook season had gone on forever, but it couldn’t and wouldn’t go on perfectly forever. No one can avoid a clunker. No one is above this. The 49ers understood this. And in the minutes and hours following the 49ers’ 33-19 loss at Levi’s Stadium on Monday night, it was pretty clear that Purdy absolutely understood it, too.

I spoke calmly with my teammates in the locker room. He went to the shower. He got dressed. He agreed with the people he knew. He got on the podium. The same thing he had done after his best matches. No sighs, bites or glares. Just the same. Except, of course, that day, Purdy had just come off the worst game of his NFL career and had to try to explain the performance. And above all: what happens now?

“For me, it’s like I have to ask myself, ‘Okay, who are you, what do you stand for? Who are you when things are going well? Who are you when things don’t go your way?’” Purdy said when asked what was going through his mind as the interceptions piled up. “It’s easy to get high and think you’re the man when things are going well, winning games and all that kind of stuff. And you don’t really see a lot of adversity in some games and what not. And that’s the reality of the NFL. …

“I have to look in the mirror, look at the plays, improve, make clearer decisions, help my team score points, score and protect the ball. And when things don’t go my way, I realize I can’t act. I have to be true to myself and be better. But I want to be the same person every day, to be consistent in what I do, in how I do things, whether things go well or not. I know who I am and I’m not going to waver in that. “I’ve said it before, I’ll continue to hang my hat on this.”

Is this the right answer? There’s no guarantee that Purdy will immediately recover from this outing, especially after having to leave a game in the fourth quarter on Monday after suffering a punctured shoulder for the second straight week. There’s no guarantee of anything for an NFL quarterback, going up against defenses full of fast, big guys.

Maybe Purdy’s MVP candidacy is now done, which, I imagine, probably doesn’t bother him at all. The conversation, frankly, was always too much. You want to win games and championships, and the rewards come from that. It’s not the other way around, and all 49ers appreciate that Purdy fully embraces this ethic.

His responses Monday night, after the demolition, were simply extensions of that mentality.

And you can imagine that his teammates wanted to hear and see exactly that from Purdy, because it’s the same thing they heard and saw from him before he became somebody, while he was playing brilliantly and, ultimately, during and after this game on Monday. They didn’t want to see the bad read that led to an interception after a good drive on the 49ers’ opening series. They didn’t want to see bad decisions and bad throws that were overturned for three more picks. They didn’t want to lose this game, which means they need to win their final two games of the regular season to secure the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs.

They didn’t want to see any of that, but the 49ers’ leaders also didn’t want to see Purdy demoralized or belittled. I didn’t want it at all. And I don’t know if all of the 49ers’ leaders spoke to Purdy during or after the assault, but the details of their responses when I asked them about Purdy indicated in some sense that they had.

That they saw everything they needed to see from their QB. And that night was the exception that shows how much they still believe in him.

“I think it’s incredible the way he’s played the last couple of years,” Nick Bosa said of Purdy. “It’s just that I’m a young guy, rookie last year, and it seems like he’s immortal out there. But no one is immortal. “He has responded with no better performances in the past, and I think he will do so again.”

Brandon Aiyuk said: “I think he’ll be good. This is the first time he really understands the other side of the issue. So I’m excited to see how he recovers. “He’ll be good.”

How could this happen to someone who had thrown just seven interceptions in the first 14 games of the season? Purdy was definitely not at his best. But the Ravens are also the No. 1 defense in the league and they played like it on Monday. Many of their players have suggested this as well AtleticoTed Nguyen that they knew they would unbalance the 49ers offense if they slowed down their running game and also understood that Purdy wanted to throw to certain spots on certain routes. So they made sure they got to those spots.

Thoughts on what they thought with Purdy, who is a spot or anticipation pitcher (Tua can also be put in this category) pic.twitter.com/keJyUSUQen

— Ted Nguyen (@FB_FilmAnalysis) December 26, 2023

Is that the kryptonite for the 49ers offense with Purdy? Maybe if I had the Ravens staff, which almost no one does. And maybe if Purdy is having a particularly terrible day, which is totally uncharacteristic of about 90% of his NFL career to date. His only other poor performance as a 49ers starter came in the Oct. 15 loss at Cleveland, with the caveat that Deebo Samuel, Trent Williams and Christian McCaffrey were all injured in that game, and even then Purdy threw only one interception.

So Monday’s stats, 18 of 32 for 255 yards, the four interceptions and zero touchdowns, for a passer rating of 42.6, were easily Purdy’s worst. The whole match was his worst. Far.

“I just think the fact that he’s played this long and never played a game like this is pretty unusual,” Kyle Shanahan said. “This is the reality of the NFL. I’m not saying it was meant to be, I wish we didn’t have so many choices today. But… I think one of them they would have really liked to have back, the other three were, I think, unlucky.”

In the first, Purdy tried to hit Samuel across the middle into the end zone but didn’t see safety Kyle Hamilton slide the other way. The 49ers had moved down the field after forcing the Ravens into the opening three-and-out. It was first-and-10 at the Ravens’ 15-yard line. It was designed to immediately put the 49ers’ stamp on this game.

Then…

“This kicks things off,” Purdy said. “Obviously we were going, we had the momentum. We had some really big shows on that trip. And then I throw the ball like that to end the momentum we had.”

Purdy said the common point was that he was trying to make too many things happen. Which should make the easier shots. That, if necessary, he should be comfortable with a throw and a punt rather than risking a turnover.

That’s exactly what happened on his third interception, midway through the second quarter, when he was pulled out of the pocket on third-and-5, saw flags flying, and still forced a pass across his body intended for George Kittle who it was overturned. away from Marlon Humphrey and eliminated, once again, by Hamilton.

“I saw some flags thrown when I was climbing and stuff like that,” Purdy said. “Not exactly what or who was on, so my mind was, ‘Try making a comedy.’ Honestly, I can’t make a bad play worse. I have to know that it depends on us, in terms of the flag, just the body language of our O-line and things like that. I saw it. “So for me to throw myself in the middle of the field with a guy on George again, that’s very stupid of me.”

Yes, Purdy is hard on himself. Yes, he deserved it on Monday. Yes, he still made some plays, but they were all erased by his mistakes. Yes, Purdy will grit his teeth and examine every millisecond of the tape. Yes, he will be better. Yes, he might have nightmares about this game. And yes, it’s the Southeast’s sign that this was an aberration, a fluke, a quirk of a night that was overdue and now it’s over.

(Photo of Brock Purdy scrambling during Monday’s game against the Ravens: Loren Elliott/Getty Images)