After a wildly successful rookie year, Brock Purdy is primed to enter 2023 as San Francisco’s starting quarterback — provided he’s fully recovered from his offseason elbow surgery.
But whenever Purdy is available to practice full-time, 49ers quarterbacks coach Brian Griese feels like there’s still plenty for the young signal-caller to work on.
“Every part of his game,” Griese said Thursday of where Purdy can improve, via Ali Thanawalla of NBCSportsBayArea.com. “I think that when you’re thrown into the fire, there’s a lot that you learn on the fly and there’s a lot of things that we all saw that he does really well. His composure, his accuracy, his escape-ability.
“I’d love to see him continue to grow in every aspect of playing quarterback and that’s timing, it’s rhythm, it’s accuracy, it’s reading defenses, it’s playing from the pocket, limiting turnovers, giving our team the best chance to win.”
Purdy completed 67.1 percent of his passes for 1,374 yards with 13 touchdowns and four interceptions in nine regular-season appearances with five starts. He then completed 65.1 percent of his throws for 569 yards with three touchdowns in the postseason, though he played one of those games with his significant elbow injury.
Perhaps most importantly, Purdy avoided turnovers. The four regular-season interceptions illustrate that, but he also had one fumble between the regular and postseason combined.
“[T]o step into a huddle with guys like George Kittle, and Christian McCaffrey, and Trent Williams and to be able to handle that emotionally, to be able to handle the offense mentally in a high-pressure situation, in a playoff situation, was not normal for a quarterback his age,” Griese said. “And so he’s got an unbelievable start to his career.”
Still, Griese noted that Purdy has to improve for the 49ers to be at their best.
“Brock and I, we’ve had that conversation and he knows, he’s the first one to tell you and that’s normal, too, for a young player,” Griese said. “So I’m excited to get him back, get him healthy, and see how good he can be.”