Kyle Shanahan not concerned with Brock Purdy’s rocky start in 1st playoff game

Brock Purdy checked virtually every box a team wants to see its quarterback check through his five regular season starts. A big question mark lingered about how he’d respond in a playoff game. While he finished the game strong, Purdy struggled through the first half. Head coach Kyle Shanahan isn’t worried about a handful of early mistakes from his rookie signal caller.

Shanahan on Monday spoke with reporters and acknowledged that Purdy didn’t get off to a good start, but he saw enough good to outweigh the bad during the 49ers’ 41-23 blowout win over the Seahawks in the wild card game.

“Yeah, there were a couple of open guys that he just missed and so I know when that happens, it sticks out as not playing well because there were plays that he shouldn’t have made,” Shanahan said. “But all the other plays, he did play well, so when you just have a couple misses you really don’t want to panic. Brock’s an accurate thrower, he has been doing that all year and playing well. He missed a few and I don’t think there was really much of an explanation for it. We had to settle down a little bit and give him a few more opportunities and he got those in the second half and was pretty lethal with them.” 

Purdy completed just 9 of his 19 first-half throws for 147 yards and one touchdown. The bothersome part was some early whiffs that he typically hit in the regular season. There were easy throws to be made and he missed them, but he also tried fitting balls into windows that weren’t open. Of his 10 incompletions, at least two could’ve been intercepted.

Part of Purdy’s struggles showed in the red zone where the 49ers were just one-for-three in the first two quarters. Still, they moved the ball well enough that Shanahan wasn’t panicking about the rookie QB.

“I think when you go in in the first half and you’re averaging eight and a half yards of play and you’ve scored on all your three possessions, you just came up short in the red zone on two,” Shanahan said. “I don’t think there is much of a panic. I think everyone’s like, holy cow, we’re getting after these guys we just have to start scoring touchdowns because we’ve missed two opportunities. We’ve only had the ball three times. Let’s figure out how to finish these and so I don’t think it was that big of a deal at halftime. The first half almost went as good as it could, but if we don’t finish some of these big plays and we just keep getting field goals then when you’re going to have to be dependent on them not scoring the rest of the game to try to win. And we don’t want to have to be dependent on that, so I think coming out in the first drive of the third quarter, throwing things down a little bit and just going on a good drive that ended with seven, I think that was a huge deal for us and then it kind of took off from there.”

Purdy in the second half lit up the Seahawks by going 9-for-11 for 185 yards with two passing TDs and a rushing score to help the 49ers pull away from Seattle.

The fact Purdy was able to bounce back in the second half is a testament to the level-headedness that’s made him an instant success in the NFL. It’s also a testament to his head coach and the offensive weapons around him. Purdy is always going to be in position to succeed as long as he avoids significant mistakes. Despite some issues in his first playoff start, Purdy finished strong enough that his head coach isn’t worried.