It's been nearly a month since the San Francisco 49ers suffered their gut-wrenching defeat in Super Bowl 58 against the Kansas City Chiefs. Players took the defeat hard, including quarterback Brock Purdy, who recently shared a positive perspective on the experience.
"Won together and lost together. Did it with my boys. Keep the Faith," Purdy wrote on Instagram (h/t Tristi Rodriguez of NBC Sports Bay Area).
It took overtime for the Chiefs to beat the 49ers, thwarting the organization's hopes of finally obtaining that desired sixth Vince Lombardi Trophy.
"The first thing that comes to mind is, when you have an opportunity like we did, to really put some points up on them and take it," Purdy said of the learning experience in Super Bowl 58. "You've got to take it. It's a Super Bowl. We got a good team, and the Chiefs on the other side, and I think we had opportunities to do that, and we all fell short of it.
"I think that's what eats at me, is I feel like we had our opportunities to, I think, sort of lap them and get up on them, and I think we failed to do that. So moving forward with my career, and if you get blessed enough to get in this kind of position again, I think you have to understand that and learn the hard way."
Even if things didn't end as they hoped, the 2023 season was exciting for 49ers fans, who watched their team win 12 regular-season games, clinch the NFC West, earn the top seed in the NFC, and come close to Super Bowl glory. Purdy has earned the respect of his locker room and appears poised to be the 49ers' franchise quarterback for years to come.
"I thought he was great," linebacker Fred Warner said of Purdy's Super Bowl performance. "He did everything necessary to win us the game. Got us two opportunities there, one before the end of the game, one before obviously in overtime, to give the defense a chance to go out there and end it, and we didn't do it."
Purdy was an MVP finalist. He threw for a franchise-record 4,280 passing yards and led the NFL with a 113.0 passer rating.