Brock Purdy refuses to throw teammate under the bus after costly mistake vs. Rams

The San Francisco 49ers lost a very brutal game against the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday. It was the kind of game where it would be easy to point fingers afterwards, but quarterback Brock Purdy refused to do that.

Purdy absolutely balled out in Sunday's game. He completed 22 of 30 pass attempts for 292 yards and three touchdowns. He also ran the ball 10 times for 41 yards. He did lose one fumble at the end of the first half, which was really the only blemish for him even though most of the blame should go to right tackle Colton McKivitz, who did a very poor job of protecting Purdy on the play.

It was a great game for the third-year quarterback and proved a lot of his doubters wrong since he did it while missing offensive All-Pro weapons like Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, and George Kittle because of injuries.

Of course, the Rams are no defensive juggernaut, but Purdy still played a phenomenal game.

The Niners easily could have won the game if just one of several things had gone their way. Even after the defense allowed the Rams to tie the game with less than two minutes on the clock in the fourth quarter, Purdy very nearly marched San Francisco right down into field-goal range.

On 2nd-and-10 with roughly a minute left on the clock, Purdy threw an absolute dime down the field to wide receiver Ronnie Bell, which clanked right off of the second-year receiver's hands.

It was as costly a drop as you can have given the circumstances since it would have put the Niners at LA's 25-yard line and allowed them to run the clock down and let Jake Moody kick a potential game-winning field goal.

While many fans were quick to call for Bell's head, Purdy displayed the poise and maturity that has become characteristic of him in his young career. When asked about the drop after the game, Purdy told reporters that he could have thrown Bell a better ball and said that he and everyone on the team had Bell's back.

"We all got Ronnie's back," Purdy said postgame. "So we're going to continue to need him and build him up and we're all in this together."

That is the mark of a true leader. When your teammate is down and feeling like the weight of the world on his shoulders after he potentially cost the team a win, you don't point your finger at him.

Instead, you give him your hand and tell him you have his back.

While Sunday was a very rough loss for San Francisco, fans should at least take solace in the fact that Purdy played his tail off and remained the same humble leader that he has always been after the loss. It is the mark of a good team to not point fingers or shift blame when things go bad, and Purdy exemplified that with his maturity after the game.

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