49ers hope 4-TD night earns Purdy ‘more respect’

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — As San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy prepared for Sunday night’s matchup against the Dallas Cowboys, he spent plenty of time looking back at the NFC divisional-round playoff game between the teams from January.

What Purdy saw on that film was a rookie quarterback making his second postseason start who was a little off compared to how he’d played after taking over as the Niners’ starter in Week 14. It wasn’t that Purdy played poorly in that postseason victory — it just wasn’t up to the lofty standard he’d already set.

Which is why, at one point last week, Purdy approached fullback Kyle Juszczyk and told him he “wanted to ball out this week” to show what he could do against a top-ranked, playoff-caliber opponent.

Mission accomplished.

Purdy and the Niners demolished the Cowboys 42-10 on Sunday night at Levi’s Stadium, as Purdy went 17-of-24 for 252 yards and a career-high four touchdowns for a passer rating of 144.2 before he was pulled early in the fourth quarter with San Francisco up by so much.

“That [playoff game] was probably his worst game,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said. “Not to be confused with bad but just comparing to all the others. … And just watching him today, I’ll see the film later tonight, but I didn’t sense that at all. He was extremely poised when we got down there. He hit all the stuff right away and didn’t turn it over most importantly.”

Coming off a win against the Arizona Cardinals last week in which Purdy had just one incompletion, a comparable encore figured to be tough. But Shanahan sensed early in the game that Purdy was on his way to a big night.

So, Shanahan dialed up plenty of opportunities for Purdy to push the ball down the field, even calling a flea-flicker that has been sitting in storage for about two years to get Purdy an open look to tight end George Kittle for the game’s second touchdown.

By the time he was done, Purdy had become the fourth Niners quarterback — alongside Jim Plunkett, Joe Montana and Jeff Garcia — to throw for four touchdowns (three to Kittle) against the Cowboys in the teams’ longstanding rivalry.

Purdy also became the 10th quarterback in league history to throw for 20 passing touchdowns in his first 10 career regular-season starts, and has posted the fewest interceptions (two) of any of those signal-callers in that span.

Despite all of that success, many Niners believe Purdy still has too many skeptics, attributing his success to Shanahan, the scheme and the talent around him instead.

“He’s just so consistent and he just continues to go out there and prove people wrong,” Juszczyk said. “I’m happy that he’s able to go out here and have a four-touchdown game on national television because, not that it matters what people on the outside are saying about him, but he deserves more respect than what he gets, I think. I hope he gets a little bit of that from this.”

For the season, Purdy is up to nine passing touchdowns with zero interceptions. That’s the second-most passing touchdowns before throwing an interception in a season in Niners history, trailing only Steve Young, who got to 10 touchdowns without a pick.

Purdy also was at the controls of a 10th straight regular-season win, tying him with Mike Tomczak and Mike Livingston for the second-most consecutive regular-season wins by a quarterback to begin a career.

Despite the many early accolades, Purdy seems unfazed by the attention, though he did acknowledge there was a little something extra behind Sunday’s performance after January’s playoff win, in which he was a modest 19-of-29 for 214 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions for a passer rating of 87.4.

Speaking to the media Thursday, Purdy called that one of the “toughest” games of his young career, feeling as though he let the Dallas defense speed him up too much, which led to some missed opportunities.

“Watching the film from last year, it was like, ‘Yeah, I want to be better,'” Purdy said. “That’s really every game, but going back to last year it was like, ‘All right, I’m going to be playing a lot of the same guys on defense, a lot of the same scheme, so it’s another challenge for me. With this scheme, I want to be better than I was last time.

“I knew that the game would come to me over time. Just got to get into a rhythm, hit the open guys, do my part as a quarterback, don’t try to force stuff and be a superhero, and that’s that. I learned from the game last year, moved on and just played this week.”

Through Sunday night’s game, Purdy finds himself at or near the top of the league in many major categories. He leads the NFL in QBR (83.7) and passer rating (115.1), is second in yards per attempt (9.3) and completion percentage (72.1%), tied for seventh in touchdown passes (9) and eighth in passing yards (1,271).

The 49ers have tied a franchise record with 15 consecutive wins and have still never lost in the regular season or playoffs when Purdy has started and finished the game.

One week after running back Christian McCaffrey had teammates lauding his candidacy for the NFL’s Most Valuable Player award, Purdy had a few of them considering that McCaffrey’s biggest competition might be his own teammate.

“Brock Purdy is playing at an MVP level,” safety Tashaun Gipson said. “He’s protecting the ball and he’s making plays. He’s not just a game manager. He’s ballin’. I just don’t think he gets enough credit when you talk about the MVPs and things like that, he’s doing this week in and week out at a high level. … We have two MVP-caliber players on offense, so that’s always a good thing when you’ve got that type of problem.”