San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy has his fair share of critics. While he’s won over a lot of converts since his rookie season, there are still some who hold out on giving him full praise for his play.
Colin Cowherd is a great example. He recently ranked Purdy and Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan as the 10th-best QB-head coach tandem in the NFL and gave this as his reasoning:
“I think Purdy is largely driven by Shanahan’s play calling and [Christian] McCaffrey’s greatness.”
He went on to praise Purdy for the way he played after he returned from injury last year, but it’s clear that people still point to others when talking about Purdy.
Shanahan is given a ton of credit, and there’s definitely an argument to be made that people will always claim Purdy is a product of Shanahan’s system until the QB plays under a different coach or play-caller.
Yet, McCaffrey may be the player most analysts and commentators give credit for any success San Francisco’s offense has had. It’s a fair argument because the 49ers have had good seasons in 2022, 2023, and 2025 (i.e. the seasons McCaffrey was healthy), while their one bad season since acquiring CMC came in 2024 when he was banged up and only played in four games.
Brock Purdy's Christian McCaffrey argument carries serious weight
The true test for Purdy will be whether he can win without McCaffrey.
One hopes that day doesn’t come for a while, but McCaffrey has dealt with injuries throughout his career, and he has already been dealing with “tightness” ahead of this season.
McCaffrey was dealing with an injury issue last year ahead of the regular season but went on to play in all 17 games and had a great season, so maybe it will be a repeat of last year. But CMC is 30 years old now, so the injury fear is going to be prevalent.
But, if McCaffrey did get injured, and Kaelon Black or another running back had to fill in, that would put a lot of pressure on Purdy. He wouldn’t have his safety valve to turn to in McCaffrey, and it would completely change how defenses approach the Niners.
At the very least, it would give Purdy a chance to prove everyone wrong.
If he led the Niners to a winning season without his star running back, then his critics would have one less thing to throw at him when trying to argue he’s not as good as others think he is.
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