The 49ers want two issues popping out of Sunday’s prime-time recreation towards the Dallas Cowboys:
The primary and most vital factor is a win.
However nearly as obligatory is a return to MVP-level play for Brock Purdy.
Sure, this can be a must-win recreation for San Francisco — you don’t get to lose back-to-back video games twice within the first half of the season and proceed to fancy your self a Tremendous Bowl contender, a lot much less a favourite (because the Niners lately have been). You don’t get to lose to those Cowboys — my goodness, are they terrible — and fake you’re any good your self.
In brief: A win will make sure the 49ers’ season isn’t over earlier than November.
However the 49ers really want Purdy to appear like an MVP once more to really feel like they’ll do one thing this winter.
Sure, a win is a win, however tautologies apart, for the Niners, a win with Purdy taking part in like one of many best quarterbacks within the NFL on Sunday would converse volumes.
Who cares if the Cowboys are one of many worst defenses within the league?
With Brandon Aiyuk out for the season, Christian McCaffrey not assured to play anytime quickly, Deebo Samuel simply popping out of the hospital, an offensive line that’s in shambles, and a protection that appears vulnerable in any respect three ranges, the Niners want their quarterback — the longer term $60 million man — to raise it above the fray, regardless of the circumstance.
I’d guess Kyle Shanahan advised Purdy as a lot when he and his quarterback huddled at No. 13’s locker following the Niners’ loss to the Chiefs. From what I may inform, it was a one-sided dialog, with loads of “sure sir” head nods from the previous final choose of the draft.
It’s on his shoulders.
He’s succesful. He’s prepared. However, prepared or not, he now he has to do the job.
“I’m like, ‘Dude, I’ve bought to be higher for my group proper now, for the Dallas Cowboys developing.’ I’m at all times looking for an edge to myself in my recreation, not eager about what subsequent yr holds,” Purdy mentioned Thursday. “We’re attempting to win this Sunday and attempting to get our report to get going up. And that’s the place my mindset is at. I’m centered on my group, on this yr and that’s closing. That’s it.””
The Niners shouldn’t have wanted the lesson, however they discovered firsthand final week that, for all of the complexities of the fashionable NFL, this league remains to be outlined by the standard of a group’s head coach and quarterback.
Thus far this season, the Niners can’t argue they’re not in right standing (final place within the NFC West).
Purdy has been (generously) up and down, and Shanahan, maybe particularly as a result of the Niners have been with out McCaffrey, hasn’t proven the type of innovation and incisiveness we’ve come to anticipate from the “genius.”
Kansas Metropolis has an impressive protection, however their offense is a large number. However they’ve Andy Reid — one of many biggest coaches of all time — and a quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, who will possible go down as the best of all time. (With apologies to Tom Brady.)
Reid was glorious towards the 49ers. Mahomes wasn’t. However that duo discovered a means (methods?) to decimate the Niners final Sunday. They beat an inferior group, even after they weren’t at their finest.
Have the Niners performed that when this season?
After main the NFL in QBR final season (73.4 out of 100), Purdy is middle-of-the-pack this marketing campaign.
“I feel final yr was probably the greatest years, statistically, ever, whenever you take a look at simply the effectivity of an entire offense,” Shanahan mentioned Wednesday. “I feel it’s laborious to try this yearly. I feel whenever you’re lacking [McCaffrey], that doesn’t assist. Lacking some receivers doesn’t assist him. However I feel Brock’s having a hell of a yr.”
If meaning up and down, Shanahan is correct. Purdy has put as a lot unhealthy nearly as good on the board — three good video games, countered by three unhealthy video games. There was a median one in there, too, for steadiness.
That components can not maintain; a superb recreation should come on Sunday.
As a result of whereas Purdy hasn’t been paid the large bucks simply but — that cash is merely earmarked for the quarterback — this group has been constructed round him. Which means his recreation has to enhance because the expertise round him decreases. If it will probably’t, is he value that big-money contract? The Niners nonetheless have time to pivot off that plan.
They don’t have the posh of ready just a few weeks for Purdy’s next-best recreation, although. Dallas can’t cease the run or the cross, they usually can’t run the ball on offense. They’ve one dependable broad receiver. I don’t care who’s out for the Niners — If No. 13 is the quarterback, this ought to be a romp.
If that’s not ok — if Purdy’s not ok — then the Niners can get a really early begin on planning for subsequent yr.
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