Five more attempts on Monday night at Levi’s Stadium would make Purdy, the final pick of the 2022 draft, the league’s career leader in passer rating, a distinction the 49ers’ Steve Young held when he retired.
By Staff Reporter
When Brock Purdy throws his fifth pass on Monday night against the Washington Commanders, he will become the most efficient passer in the history of the National Football League, at least by the measure the league has used since 1973.
Purdy enters the 49ers’ Week 6 game at Levi’s Stadium with a career passer rating of 105.4 over 1,495 regular-season attempts, The Associated Press reported. The league requires 1,500 attempts to qualify for its career leaderboard, which is currently topped by Lamar Jackson of Baltimore at 102.7. Purdy’s margin is wide enough that the record is effectively assured: even if his next five passes were all intercepted, his rating would fall only to 103.7, Pro Football Talk calculated.
The milestone arrives with San Francisco at 5-0 and alone atop the NFC West. Kickoff is at 5:15 p.m. Pacific.
From ‘Mr. Irrelevant’ to the record book
Purdy, now 26, was the 262nd and final player selected in the 2022 draft, a status that carries the tongue-in-cheek title “Mr. Irrelevant.” He took over as the starter late in his rookie season and has since become one of the league’s most productive quarterbacks under Coach Kyle Shanahan.
The record carries a particular resonance in Santa Clara. Steve Young, the Hall of Fame quarterback who led the 49ers to their last Super Bowl title, after the 1994 season, retired as the league’s career leader in passer rating, The San Francisco Standard noted this month. The Standard reported that through four games this season, the 49ers were adding more than half an expected point per Purdy dropback, a pace that would exceed the single-season mark set by Peyton Manning in 2004.
Passer rating has well-known limitations. It rewards completion percentage heavily, caps the credit a quarterback can receive in each category and ignores sacks, first downs and rushing, as Pro Football Talk observed. But it remains the league’s official yardstick, and Shanahan said the number reflects something real.
“I think it shows how consistent Brock is,” Shanahan said on Saturday, according to the team’s injury and practice report. “Brock is such an unselfish player in that way. Every week, Brock plays to do what it takes to win, and sometimes that’s being aggressive, sometimes it’s not, but he plays to win.”
A comeback in Seattle, and a long injury list
The 49ers arrive at Monday’s game off a 32-29 victory over the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field on Oct. 11, in which Purdy led two fourth-quarter scoring drives after San Francisco trailed 26-21 entering the period. The defense forced four turnovers and recorded five sacks. The win offered a measure of redress for a 41-6 loss in Seattle in last season’s divisional round, when a depleted 49ers roster was routed, as Seattle Sports noted.
The roster is again thin. The team has ruled out the receiver Deebo Samuel (hamstring), the defensive end Nick Bosa (knee and calf), the linebacker Garret Wallow (hamstring) and the safety Marques Sigle (ankle) for Monday. Mike Evans, the veteran receiver who had seven catches for 113 yards and a touchdown in Seattle while playing through a rib injury, is listed as questionable with rib and Achilles injuries and did not practice this week. The receiver Christian Kirk is also questionable; asked whether Kirk could be activated, Shanahan said, “Possibly.”
The fullback Kyle Juszczyk is expected to return from a knee injury that kept him out against Seattle, and the running back Christian McCaffrey and the left tackle Trent Williams practiced fully on Friday and Saturday after rest days, the team said.
Washington arrives at 1-3-1, coming off a tie, and will be without the running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt, who has a groin injury, ESPN reported. Oddsmakers have made San Francisco a 7.5-point favorite, according to CBS Sports.
A big night in the South Bay, and across the bay
Monday’s game is the 49ers’ first prime-time appearance of the season and another national showcase for Levi’s Stadium, which hosted Super Bowl LX in February and six FIFA World Cup matches this summer. For Santa Clara, which owns the stadium through a city-controlled stadium authority, a nationally televised game featuring an unbeaten home team is the kind of event the venue was built to deliver.
It will also be an unusually crowded evening for Bay Area sports fans. The Golden State Valkyries host Game 2 of the WNBA Finals at Chase Center in San Francisco at 5 p.m., 15 minutes before kickoff in Santa Clara, after winning the series opener on Saturday. Fans hoping to follow both will need two screens.
For Purdy, the record will be a footnote to a larger ambition. The 49ers have not won a Super Bowl since Young’s era, and an unbeaten start in October guarantees nothing in January. The passer-rating mark will be his on the fifth throw. The rest of the season will decide what it means.
