49ers quarterback Brock Purdy threw four interceptions in Monday night’s loss to the Ravens. 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan has said the bigger issue than the interceptions was how Purdy responds to them.
On Friday, Shanahan was asked how Purdy has responded. Shanahan made it clear that he’s done talking about Purdy’s four-pick night.
“Yeah, he was great,” Shanahan said. “I think, no offense to you, but I’m so exhausted talking about the interceptions from our last game, but it’s been like any other week and like any other play. He goes through each play one at a time and tries to do as best he can.”
Exhausted or not, when a great team loses and there’s one specific glaring contributing factor, it becomes a topic and stays a topic, until the next game.
Purdy seems to instinctively realize that. Shanahan was next asked about Purdy’s ability to speak to reporters after a bad game or a bad moment “and he’s not at all defensive and he’s very open about what happened and the mistakes he made.”
“I just think it’s him,” Shanahan said. “That’s how he is when I coach him. He says what he thinks. I say what I think. He’s a very humble guy, but extremely competitive. That’s just Brock. That’s how I see him handle talking to people out of here. He’s always going to take responsibility. He doesn’t just do it because he knows how to talk to the media. That’s how he looks at things. He always looks inward first and he genuinely feels that way. Sometimes I think he’s too hard on himself in terms of that. Not too hard on himself, that’s just how he is. But it’s cool that he never shows frustration. I think it’s pretty easy for him because I don’t think he has a lot of frustration with other people. I think he always looks at what he can do better.”
That’s good news for the 49ers as they try to turn things around and nail down the No. 1 seed in the NFC. It also has helped keep Shanahan from having to talk very much about another topic that has surely left him “so exhausted” — his latest game against a Washington franchise where he and his father worked, and from which he and his father were fired.