Purdy’s NFL Potential Astonishingly Predicted By Mike Shanahan originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Brock Purdy’s meteoric rise to superstardom took the NFL world by surprise, but one member of the Shanahan family
Mike Shanahan, father of 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, expected big things from Purdy after watching workout footage from minicamp during the quarterback’s debut season in 2022.
During an interview on “Pardon My Take,” Mike Silver of The San Francisco Chronicle explained that the focus at the time was on quarterbacks Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo, but the elder Shanahan continued to target Iowa State’s rookie quarterback.
“This is incredible, so because I wrote this book at full strength, I spent a lot of time with him [Mike Shanahan] in May and June of 2022,” Silver said. “So in those conversations I would obviously ask him about Trey Lance, and Jimmy [Garoppolo] and he kept talking about Brock Purdy because he saw a minicamp tape and I thought, ‘He’s kind of into Brock Purdy in a weird way.’
“Whatever, he’s the No. 262 pick and the last pick. Now they open against the Bears, it’s Trey Lance’s first game as the unquestioned starter. The day before, I go into Mike Shanahan’s room and I’m sitting there and I ask him about Trey Lance and he brings up Purdy again and he says, ‘When you have a guy like that in your building, you don’t let him go.’ So he still has it.”
The 49ers made the bold decision to draft three quarterbacks before the start of the 2022 NFL season, knowing that multiple teams planned to pick up Purdy if the rookie went on waivers or went undrafted.
San Francisco’s gamble paid off: Purdy proved to be an indispensable mainstay during his rookie season, before eventually securing his place on the throne as the 49ers’ starting quarterback.
Now entering his third season in the NFL, Purdy has developed into one of the league’s top quarterbacks and is ready to lead San Francisco for years to come.
Fortunately, the organization saw the same thing as Mike Shanahan and prevented an alternate reality in which Purdy found his NFL touch with another franchise that would reap the benefits of the quarterback’s presence.
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