The 49ers want two issues popping out of Sunday’s prime-time recreation towards the Dallas Cowboys:
The primary and most essential factor is a win.
However nearly as obligatory is a return to MVP-level play for Brock Purdy.
Sure, it is a must-win recreation for San Francisco — you don’t get to lose back-to-back video games twice within the first half of the season and proceed to fancy your self a Tremendous Bowl contender, a lot much less a favourite (because the Niners just lately have been). You don’t get to lose to those Cowboys — my goodness, are they terrible — and fake you’re any good your self.
Briefly: A win will make sure the 49ers’ season isn’t over earlier than November.
However the 49ers really want Purdy to seem like an MVP once more to really feel like they’ll do one thing this winter.
Sure, a win is a win, however tautologies apart, for the Niners, a win with Purdy taking part in like one of many best quarterbacks within the NFL on Sunday would converse volumes.
Who cares if the Cowboys are one of many worst defenses within the league?
With Brandon Aiyuk out for the season, Christian McCaffrey not assured to play anytime quickly, Deebo Samuel simply popping out of the hospital, an offensive line that’s in shambles, and a protection that appears vulnerable in any respect three ranges, the Niners want their quarterback — the long run $60 million man — to raise it above the fray, regardless of the circumstance.
I’d guess Kyle Shanahan instructed Purdy as a lot when he and his quarterback huddled at No. 13’s locker following the Niners’ loss to the Chiefs. From what I may inform, it was a one-sided dialog, with loads of “yes sir” head nods from the previous final decide of the draft.
It’s on his shoulders.
He’s succesful. He’s prepared. However, prepared or not, he now he has to do the job.
“I’m like, ‘Dude, I’ve got to be better for my team right now, for the Dallas Cowboys coming up.’ I’m always trying to find an edge to myself in my game, not thinking about what next year holds,” Purdy stated Thursday. “We’re trying to win this Sunday and trying to get our record to get going up. And that’s where my mindset is at. I’m focused on my team, on this year and that’s final. That’s it.””
The Niners shouldn’t have wanted the lesson, however they discovered firsthand final week that, for all of the complexities of the fashionable NFL, this league remains to be outlined by the standard of a workforce’s head coach and quarterback.
To this point this season, the Niners can’t argue they’re not in right standing (final place within the NFC West).
Purdy has been (generously) up and down, and Shanahan, maybe particularly as a result of the Niners have been with out McCaffrey, hasn’t proven the form of innovation and incisiveness we’ve come to anticipate from the “genius.”
Kansas Metropolis has an impressive protection, however their offense is a large number. However they’ve Andy Reid — one of many best coaches of all time — and a quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, who will seemingly go down as the best of all time. (With apologies to Tom Brady.)
Reid was glorious towards the 49ers. Mahomes wasn’t. However that duo discovered a approach (methods?) to decimate the Niners final Sunday. They beat an inferior workforce, even once they weren’t at their greatest.
Have the Niners accomplished that when this season?
After main the NFL in QBR final season (73.4 out of 100), Purdy is middle-of-the-pack this marketing campaign.
“I think last year was one of the best years, statistically, ever, when you look at just the efficiency of a whole offense,” Shanahan stated Wednesday. “I think it’s hard to do that every year. I think when you’re missing [McCaffrey], that doesn’t help. Missing some receivers doesn’t help him. But I think Brock’s having a hell of a year.”
If which means up and down, Shanahan is correct. Purdy has put as a lot dangerous nearly as good on the board — three good video games, countered by three dangerous video games. There was a median one in there, too, for stability.
That method can not maintain; recreation should come on Sunday.
As a result of whereas Purdy hasn’t been paid the massive bucks simply but — that cash is merely earmarked for the quarterback — this workforce has been constructed round him. Which means his recreation has to enhance because the expertise round him decreases. If it could’t, is he value that big-money contract? The Niners nonetheless have time to pivot off that plan.
They don’t have the luxurious of ready a number of weeks for Purdy’s next-best recreation, although. Dallas can’t cease the run or the cross, and so they can’t run the ball on offense. They’ve one dependable large receiver. I don’t care who’s out for the Niners — If No. 13 is the quarterback, this needs to be a romp.
If that’s not ok — if Purdy’s not ok — then the Niners can get a really early begin on planning for subsequent yr.
Initially Revealed: October 25, 2024 at 2:13 p.m.
