Purdy is on fire to open the season, and the catalyst for the 49ers’ 4-0 start. Playing pristine in Kyle Shanahan’s system, Purdy’s performance is a culmination of time on task, innate deft touch, exemplary pocket manipulation and heady playmaking. Each week he seems to drop a dime that makes me yelp and wonder how in heaven the ball got through to its target.
Through four games, Purdy is tied for the league lead with 11 touchdown passes and has allowed a banged-up 49ers offense to continue operating at a high level without a trove of assets. Sure, he still has Christian McCaffrey and George Kittle to lean on, but the receiver corps has been decimated, including Mike Evans clearly playing through a painful rib issue. Lesser QBs have crumbled. Carrying a club through injury is MVP pixie dust.
Sunday’s outing against Denver wasn’t his best of the year, but did little to take the shine off. Purdy still hasn’t been sacked this season. If we’re willing to say sacks are a QB stat when blaming players who take them in droves, we should credit Purdy’s uncanny ability to shake free and avoid negative plays. Avoiding disaster has been a Purdy specialty through four weeks. He’s thrown two touchdowns without an interception for the third straight week. He also became the first 49ers QB to start the season with multiple touchdowns in each of the first four games since Steve Young in 1998 (seven straight), per NFL Research.
Purdy has used keen accuracy to blow away the rest of the QBs through the start of the season. He’s No. 1 in passer rating (126.2), QBR (89.6) and net yards per attempt (8.9). His EPA per dropback of 0.53 is by far the top (Lamar Jackson is No. 2 at 0.29), and his success rate of 60.7% is best among QBs with at least 100 dropbacks. There is nary an advanced stat Purdy isn’t dominating right now.
Knock his opponents if you must, and yes, there could be a clunker coming, in which he splashes a couple of interceptions on high passes over the middle, but entering Week 5, no one is playing the position at Purdy’s level in 2026.