Kyle Shanahan's tape review with Brock Purdy may reveal surprising inconsistency for 49ers quarterback

As Brock Purdy enjoyed an MVP caliber season for the San Francisco 49ers in 2023, it was very difficult to poke holes in his game.

The most common critique of Purdy was a tiresome one, that his success was purely a product of Kyle Shanahan's system and a stacked group of offensive skill players. 

Purdy's first full season as starter, which saw him set the franchise record (4,280) for single-season passing yardage and ended with the 49ers a play away from winning the Super Bowl, was made all the more impressive by the fact it came on the back of limited offseason preparation following surgery on the torn elbow ligament he suffered in the NFC Championship Game at the end of the 2022 season.

Shanahan is excited for Purdy to get the chance to go through a full offseason and is relishing the opportunity to watch last season's tape with his quarterback, with the 49ers head coach targeting more consistency from the Pro Bowler.

"I’m just pumped Brock gets an offseason,” Shanahan said at the NFL annual meetings on Tuesday. “His first season, he didn’t get much of one because he was the third quarterback. Last year, he couldn’t throw with us until training camp. This year, he just got married and he’s fully healthy. He’s going to come back here in a couple weeks and we’ll get going. I’m just pumped to be able to go through the film with him and be on the field with him."

Asked where Purdy could improve, Shanahan replied: "Getting more consistent on everything. (In 2022), he had seven games. When you have a whole season, there’s so much tape to go over. That takes a long time to get through. 

"You always want to be perfect, and no one ever will be. But when you have the reps that he’s had, now he can review that stuff and take it to the field. So when we get back on April 15 together, we’ll look at all the quick game, all the five-step drops, all the seven-step drops, the play action, the movement, all that stuff that (Brian) Griese and (Klay) Kubiak will take a look at and work on every day."

A surprising inconsistency

Shanahan and his coaching staff will likely find areas for improvement in all of those aspects of quarterback play in their futile quest for perfection. Yet the numbers point to a quarterback who excelled across the board, though there is one area Shanahan mentioned where Purdy's statistics were not quite as impressive.

Purdy was the best play action quarterback in the NFL by passer rating (142.6) and completion percentage (79.8), per Sports Info Solutions. He trailed only Joe Flacco (11.9) in adjusted net yards per attempt (ANYA) on play action passes (11.4) but was first in positive play rate (65.4%).

Though his completion percentage dropped to 63, Purdy still led the league in passer rating on five-step drops (133.5), averaging a league-high 11.1 ANYA. His positive play rate (51.1%) trailed only Tua Tagovailoa (57.1%) and he was first in total Expected Points Added (34.4).

It was a similar story on seven-step drops, with Purdy's passer rating (126.4) trailing only Kirk Cousins (132.4) and his ANYA of 12.6 second behind C.J. Stroud (13.2) on a completion percentage of 76.7. Purdy's positive play rate on throws with a seven-step drop of 67.7% was the best in the league.

The area where there appears to have been an obvious drop off was in the quick game. On three-step drops, which typically accompany quick-game concepts, Purdy completed 64.5% of his passes and averaged 7.8 ANYA with a passer rating of 94.8, way down on his performance on play-action and five and seven-step drops.

It should be noted that his positive play rate of 49.7% on three-step drops was still fourth-best in the league, and his comparatively poor performance in the other metrics are not reflective of a quarterback struggling to process quickly and get the ball out. Per Pro Football Focus, Purdy averaged a league-leading 8.9 yards per attempt when his time to throw was under 2.5 seconds, throwing 13 touchdowns to two interceptions, though his seven turnover-worthy plays speak to potential inconsistencies Shanahan referred to.

Passing game evolution

Instead, the disparity is perhaps more reflective of the evolution of the passing game with Purdy under center. The 49ers still rely heavily on short to intermediate throws that set up opportunities to create yardage after the catch, but their dropback game has become more varied and more aggressive with Purdy at quarterback. 

Per PFF, the 2023 season saw Purdy attempt 47 throws of 20 air yards or more, and he completed 30. In 2021, Jimmy Garoppolo's last season in which he began the year as the starter, he attempted 33 and only completed 11. He attempted 28 across 11 games in 2022 but connected on just eight. 

Purdy's intended air yards per attempt rose from 6.6 in 2022 to 8.2 in 2023, per Pro Football Reference. In his time with the team, Garoppolo only averaged over seven air yards per attempt once in a season in which he played double-digit games (7.5 in 2021).

The passing game has clearly changed with the passing of the torch from Garoppolo to Purdy but, following a Super Bowl defeat in which his quarterback came under continual fire from the Kansas City Chiefs pass rush, Shanahan will ideally want the quick game to rise to a higher standard. 

Pursuit of perfection is one in which it is impossible to succeed. However, after again being denied by Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs on the biggest stage, Shanahan and Purdy will both head into their offseason tape review knowing they need to get as close as possible.