Last Sunday night's mostly defense-optional showdown gave us a play that belongs in the Canton, Ohio vault of NFL highlights. Brock Purdy faked the handoff, rolled left, and suddenly had Austin Booker and the very spherical Andrew Billings chasing him like Labradors after tennis balls on roller skates. Purdy looped a full 360 around Booker, slipped through two desperate arm swipes, convinced two more Bears he was taking it to the house, and then casually flicked the most disrespectful touchdown pass you'll ever see to Kyle Juszczyk.
Even Juice needed a second to process the whole sequence before spiking the ball like it owed him money.
Seeing this play out in real time prompted me to make noises that my wife didn't fully know how to interpret from the other room. Mike Tirico nailed the call, and Cris Collinsworth got in some time on his favorite hobby: reminding the audience of Patrick Mahomes' greatness (credit to Collinsworth for having some self-awareness on this shortly after).
As a standalone effort, it was phenomenal. Still, with context, it was really the extra scoop of ice cream on the bitter "suck-it" sundae forced upon all the Purdy haters who have watched this guy compile 23 total touchdowns over eight games played this season, the most ever for a quarterback with eight or fewer starts.
You'd have to be in complete denial not to acknowledge that this dude is absolutely ROLLING right now, and along with the success, he's really starting to feel himself while doing it. It's fun to watch for the fans that love him, and likely infuriating for detractors who are subjected to Purdy's version of "The Dougie" multiple times a game.
At this key moment in the season, and his short career, Purdy has an opportunity to put the rest of the NFC field on notice. The Bears aren't fielding a great defense by any stretch, but the Seahawks are. Thankfully, the 49ers don't have to travel North to test it out again this year, and likely without the services of Trent Williams. Ordinarily, this would keep me up at night and increase my bourbon intake for the week leading up to the game, but the feeling this time is a bit different.
I can see a few likely scenarios playing out, including a much lower-scoring version of this past Sunday's blood-pressure check for all of us fans. The Seahawks and Niners are two very good, very familiar teams playing with everything on the line in the division and the conference. It has every right to be another classic like the 2019 season closer in Seattle, and we'd be lucky to see it.
I can also see Sam Darnold completely wetting his pants as he did last year in an eerily similar situation, taking his then-Vikings team to Detroit with the #1 seed on the line in the NFC. It was a laugher for Detroit.
If you didn't watch that game, I recommend the highlights of that matchup and the following Wild Card matchup against the Rams if you want to feel better about a potential turnaround for the 49ers defense this weekend. The '25 49ers are not as talented in the front seven as Detroit was at this time last season, and let's acknowledge that Minnesota is prone to these kinds of failures. But Detroit was pretty depleted by injuries in its own right; even at home, they were still "gettable".
Well, Sam didn't, indeed, "get them". He struggled to a pretty paltry stat line, completing 18 of 41 passes for 160-ish yards and nine points.
He had an even rougher outing against the Rams. Looking to bounce back (and potentially earn an extended contract with the Vikes), Darnold made the Aaron Donald-less Rams look like the '85 Bears who had somehow managed to acquire Lawrence Taylor the night before the game (put a Coke machine next to The Fridge, you might say). The Rams rolled up NINE sacks to go with a pick and were on their way to Philly. The Vikings had seen enough, and Sam was on the move, ultimately landing in Seattle.
To his credit, Darnold pulled off a heck of a comeback against those same, suddenly floundering Rams last week. If he can outgrow the yips, he's likely to play better against the limited San Francisco defense this time around, but that's not guaranteed. I know a few Seattle fans, and I can tell you nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is expecting this outcome in Washington. They're collectively holding their breath as much as we do when Chase Lucas gets targeted on a 10-yard out.
All that said, Purdy vs. Seattle is the perfect playoff primer. No Trent Williams? Typically, a big problem, one that would typically up my weekly bourbon intake by 50%, except Purdy and Kyle Shanahan seem to be operating on a different plane than the rest of the NFC and maybe the league. Win Saturday, and the "Is Purdy worth his contract?" chatter dies fast. By 2026, with the ever-expanding quarterback contract market, his deal might look like a clearance-rack steal.
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