Purdy Is Ripping It in Camp, and That Throw to Demarcus Robinson Was a Dime
I have been miserable all week reading injury reports, so let me have this one. Brock Purdy is throwing the football beautifully right now, and the ball he dropped over two defenders to Demarcus Robinson in the back of the end zone was the kind of throw that makes you stand up in your living room over a practice. A practice!
Let me describe the throw one more time, because I have watched it fifty times
Purdy takes the snap, the coverage is not open, and he throws it anyway. Two defenders in the area. Robinson running to the back of the end zone with basically a phone booth of grass to work with. And Brock just drops it in a bucket. Not a rope. Not a prayer. A drop-in, over the top, only-place-it-could-go football.
That is anticipation. That is a quarterback who sees the play a half second before it happens and trusts what he sees. That is exactly the guy we saw take this team to a Super Bowl, and it is exactly the guy the national people spend every offseason explaining to me does not exist.
Demarcus Robinson has been the quiet best story of this camp
Everybody wanted to talk about the shiny names this offseason and Robinson has just been out there catching everything, from every quarterback on the roster, every single day. He beat Renardo Green on a fade in one-on-ones for a touchdown. He has made grabs down the sideline. He has been a mainstay in the offense, which in Shanahan-speak means the coaches actually trust him.
And thank God for it, because with Pearsall done for the year and half the receiver room getting maintenance days, a veteran who wins in the red zone and does not drop the ball is worth about four times what we paid for him.
He looks free out there
Here is the part I care about more than any single throw. Purdy looks loose. He is playing fast, ripping it into windows, not holding it, not surveying, not doing that thing where he hangs onto it for three and a half seconds while the pocket collapses on him and we all age a year.
That version of Brock, the one who is decisive and unafraid, is a top-five quarterback in this league and I am not going to argue with anybody about it anymore. The other version, the hesitant one, is the one that shows up when the protection is bad and the receivers are backups and he stops trusting what he is seeing. Which is why the next paragraph exists.
So now the only thing that matters
Stay healthy, BCB. That is it. That is the entire prayer for this season.
Because I have been down this road. Every year we look great in August. Every year somebody tells me this is the most talented roster in football. And every year we get to January with a quarterback playing on one leg behind a line held together with tape, and everybody acts shocked. I am not doing the shocked part again.
Keep him upright. Keep the receivers on the field. Keep the O-line together. Do that and this offense with Purdy throwing it like this is going to be a nightmare for people, and the new defense under Raheem Morris will not have to be perfect.
But it starts with 13. Give the ball to the guy who just dropped a dime over two defenders in the back of the end zone in August and get out of his way. Stay healthy, BCB. Please.
More coverage: 49ers section · Columns · Bay Area Sports Blog home