Brock Purdy has been the NFL’s feel-good story since he took over for Jimmy Garrapolo in week 12, went 5-0 to finish the regular season and led San Francisco to the NFC Conference Championship game before an injury ended his Super Bowl hopes.
Since then, Purdy has been one of the most talked about quarterbacks in the league outside of Aaron Rodgers and his injury and Pat McAfee Show appearances.
But after starting this season 5-0, the 49ers have lost three straight, including a 31-17 home loss to the Bengals on Sunday.
During this losing streak, Purdy’s magic has evaporated and it appears that the aura surrounding the 2022 seventh-round pick out of Iowa State has dimmed significantly thanks to the five interceptions he’s thrown during this time.
Just three weeks ago, it was all good for Purdy.
An interception was quickly dismissed by the media by focusing on his 5-1 record and the fact that a seventh-round pick was leading a Super Bowl contender. Even last week, despite throwing two INTs in a 17-22 loss to the Vikings on Monday Night Football, no national cable sports talk programs outside of Shannon Sharpe on “First Take” sincerely took Purdy to task for consecutive losses and mounting INTs.
"I knew what [Brock Purdy] was to begin with. … When the defense can't be perfect … and they ask Brock Purdy to deliver us, he didn't. … If Brock Purdy is elite, we need another definition for Patrick Mahomes."
— First Take (@FirstTake) October 24, 2023
—@ShannonSharpe pic.twitter.com/gqRsAomCgJ
“Lost confidence?” replied Sharpe to Molly Querim when asked if he had lost confidence in the young QB. “I knew what he was to begin with.
“I noticed when we had the conversation about three weeks ago Stephen A., I was trending because I said Brock Purdy wasn’t elite. Now all of a sudden, I ain’t get nothing. Nobody was on my timeline. Shannon doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Shannon is a hater. I didn’t get any of that last night.”
The media’s coddling of Purdy contrasts the treatment Black quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott, Jalen Hurts and Russell Wilson receive weekly.
Lamar’s teammates dropped eight passes in Baltimore’s Week 5 loss to Pittsburgh. But Lamar’s one mistake, a late-game interception in the end zone, was emphasized more than the dropped passes.
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