The 49ers’ meeting with the Dolphins this Sunday carries a familiar flashback for Brock Purdy, because Miami was the opponent for one of the biggest early turns in his NFL story.
Back in Week 7 of the 2022 season, Purdy stepped in after an injury to Jimmy Garoppolo and immediately gave San Francisco the kind of performance that made people stop and take him seriously. In that game, he went 25-for-37 for 210 yards, threw two touchdown passes and had one interception.
What stood out was how he handled the pressure. Miami came after him all game with blitzes, but Purdy never looked overwhelmed. That kind of calm is hard to ignore from a rookie who had been selected with the very last pick in the NFL Draft.
He stayed composed in the pocket, got the ball out quickly and processed what he was seeing at a high level. The result was a 33-17 win for the 49ers.
That game was also notable for how Kyle Shanahan approached it. He ran Christian McCaffrey only 17 times while letting Purdy throw it 37 times, a clear sign that the coach trusted what he was seeing from his quarterback. It backed up what Shanahan had told now-disgraced 49ers principal owner Jed York: that the team’s best quarterback might be Purdy.
And that Miami performance wasn’t a one-off. Purdy followed it with an even better first start the next week against Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and then turned around and carved up the Seattle Seahawks the week after that. San Francisco kept winning until the run ended against the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship Game, when Brock and the rest of the quarterback room got injured.
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For a team with postseason and seeding ambitions, the appeal here is simple: every result has a downstream consequence, whether it helps or hurts the 49ers path later on. The tricky part for fans is sorting through which matchups deserve a cheer and which ones are best left to play out, since the Week 2 slate could leave San Francisco in a better position, or tighten the race in ways that make the coming weeks even more important. [Read more 🡒]