Brock Purdy is not the MVP, and that’s okay

Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

Brock Purdy isn’t even the MVP of his own team, and that’s fine.

Brock Purdy is a great many things. He’s smart. He’s accurate. He’s incredible at handling pressure. He’s an extension of Kyle Shanahan on the field. He’s the missing piece the 49ers needed. One thing he isn’t though, is the NFL’s Most Valuable Player — but he doesn’t need to be.

Discussion of what Purdy is, or isn’t has been litigated all season long but reached a new high on Sunday afternoon when he and the 49ers walked into Lincoln Financial Field, took the Eagles’ lunch money, and strolled out of hostile territory as clean as a Danny Ocean heist. This led to renewed vigor around Purdy, including this from ESPN’s Louis Riddick.

This is where the discussion gets complicated when it comes to Purdy, because yes, the stats and tape confirm that he has a great resume. They absolutely confirm that he is one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL this season — but it’s a little bit like watching a master forger paint the Mona Lisa. There’s unquestionable skill and talent required to recreate a work of art, but is there inherent value in watching someone paint by numbers perfectly?

It goes without saying that when it comes to the 49ers offense we know the master behind it all. Kyle Shanahan took the best elements taught to him by his father Mike Shanahan, and brought pop’s system into the 21st century. It’s still rooted in the same zone blocking schemes up front, but modernized the play structure with 11 personnel — adding more vertical options than a traditional west coast offense, and utilizing more pre-snap movement.

The Shanahan offense has always made quarterbacks look good. It’s just the nature of the beast. It’s less about what legends like John Elway and Steve Young did in the system, and more the smattering of “just okay” passers who became juggernauts as a result.

Brian Griese finished with a 102.9 passer rating in the system in 2000
Jake Plummer threw for over 4,000 yards in 2004
Jay Cutler was one of the NFL’s best passers in 2008
Robert Griffin III was the offensive rookie of the year in 2012

When it came to Kyle Shanahan taking over it’s essentially been more of the same. The key difference is that Kyle proved he wasn’t just a glorified nepo baby trading on his dad’s name, but an offensive genius in his own right who could adapt the system to the modern NFL and still allow quarterbacks to find success.

The new Shanahan offense turned Matt Schaub into a passing machine with the Texans. It led to Matt Ryan winning an MVP award in Atlanta. It tricked the world into believing Jimmy Garoppolo really might be the next Tom Brady.

An unfair misconception about the offense is that it “makes life easy” for the quarterback. In some ways this is true. It’s not a scheme that necessitates tight window passes, other-worldly arm strength, or willing a play out of nothing. Instead it doles out plays to the quarterback like sheet music to a concert pianist, asking them to execute on the notes without room for improvisation. It takes a very special player to put their ego aside completely and suppress their base instincts in favor of following the script — rewarding the selflessness of those able to do it.

It’s for this reason it’s often said that a Shanahan offense makes any QB good, and a good QB great. Right now Brock Purdy is the latter, and he’s truly brilliant.

That comes at a cost though, and in this case it’s personal glory. It’s impossible to divorce the quarterback from the system when looking at the 2023 49ers — and that’s what makes a Purdy for MVP argument ring hollow.

When Steve Young won his two MVP awards in 1992 and 1994 the average football fan had very limited understanding of scheme and concepts. When Ryan won his inside the Shanahan system he was a benefactor of it being a down year for quarterbacks, but also we saw things from him we’d never seen before.

We have seen exactly what Purdy is doing. We saw it two years ago. Sure, Garoppolo wasn’t nearly as dynamic in running the Shanahan system, but brass tacks they’re almost the same guy stats wise.

Jimmy Garoppolo (2021): 3,810 yards (68.3% cmp), 8.6 YPA, 20 TD, 12 INT — 98.7 rating
Brock Purdy (2023, projected): 4,512 yards (70.2% cmp), 9.6 YPA, 33 TD, 9 INT — 116.1 rating

Purdy is a much better Jimmy G. He’s better than him in every way, but it’s not like these guys come from different planets. Garropolo missed two games in 2021, and with those factored in he would have been much closer stat wise.

What we’re witnessing now is the upgrade at QB the Niners needed. The player who could take the razor-thin margins Garropolo couldn’t execute on, and get them done. Purdy replaced being “good enough” with true brilliance, and in time we really could be talking about him alongside the likes of Steve Young.

That doesn’t stop him being a system quarterback. That doesn’t prevent the reality that Christian McCaffrey is the most valuable offensive player the 49ers have. How can the league’s Most Valuable Player neither be the most valuable player on his team, nor be that far removed from those who excelled at the position before him?

The hardware of winning MVP is great. It makes for excellent water cooler talk, and internet fingers to go wild on Reddit. Ultimately though, it just doesn’t really matter. We can appreciate Brock Purdy’s greatness inside the 49ers system without needing to bend over backwards justifying him for MVP when he’s really not that transcendent.

In 1998 when John Elway won the Super Bowl with Mike Shanahan he was the greatest winner in all of football. Elway was not the MVP that year — that belonged to his running back and teammate Terrell Davis. Only 25 years later history is repeating itself, and once more the most valuable player inside a dominant Shanahan offense is its running back, while we can still appreciate how amazing the QB is.

And that’s okay.