By now, most San Francisco 49ers fans have grown tone deaf when hearing slander directed at quarterback Brock Purdy.
And his recent five-year, $265 million extension to become one of the NFL's highest-paid players probably didn't help matters either. For whatever the reasons, there are still those who feel the final pick of the 2022 draft is overrated and a mere byproduct of his context under head coach Kyle Shanahan despite long having surpassed that lowly draft status.
Sure, the Niners' 2024 injury-riddled campaign didn't help Purdy's case much, as it was clear he wasn't the MVP-caliber performer over the course of the year. That said, San Francisco's offense still boasted top-level passing numbers despite the 6-11 finish, so it's just as easy a conclusion to suggest a bit of an enigma.
That's where Sports Illustrated's Matt Verderame comes in with his latest take on where Purdy ranks among all 32 starters entering 2025.
Brock Purdy is 'mid' according to SI quarterback rankings
Verderame lumped ever team's starter into tiers, and Purdy has long since surpassed any notion of being below average.
Perhaps fittingly, though, Verderame declared Purdy at No. 17 in a tier category called "what are you?"
The SI analyst validated the placement by writing:
"Purdy, who received a massive contract extension in the offseason, has a ton of questions swirling around him and if things aren’t perfect, then what? Last year, the 49ers struggled to stay healthy with [Christian] McCaffrey, [George] Kittle, [Deebo] Samuel and [Brandon] Aiyuk missing 27 combined games. Without elite weapons, Purdy threw for 3,864 yards, 20 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. That’s the epitome of average."
On one hand, it's a fair assessment. Even the most diehard Purdy fans would likely acknowledge 2024 was a bit of a down year, especially in contrast to his historic 2023 campaign that helped propel the 49ers all the way to the Super Bowl.
On the other, at least three-fourths of the league's starters would experience serious setbacks if the bulk of their supporting talent was inconsistently absent and/or missing from action.
Effectively, Verderame is saying Purdy doesn't belong in that best-of-the-best category of quarterbacks who can carry a team no matter who's part of the supporting cast, and there may be only three or four of those kinds of signal-callers any given year.
While it's fair to argue whether or not Purdy deserves placement above other "mid" quarterbacks, such as the Jacksonville Jaguars' Trevor Lawrence (No. 13) or the first-year starter with the Minnesota Vikings, J.J. McCarthy (No. 9), it's probably better to let Purdy go out and not only justify the Niners' hefty investment in him but also to prove any doubters that he's far from just average.