The Eagles thrive as underdogs. Brock Purdy is the ultimate underdog. Something’s gotta give.
The ultimate underdog goes against the town and team that live for that label. An Eagles loss would be as thick as irony gets.
This has been quite the run-up to the latest biggest of big games for the Eagles, to their matchup Sunday against the 49ers.
It’s more than 10-1 vs. 8-3. It’s an outcome that likely will have home-field advantage in this year’s playoffs at stake. It’s a rematch of last season’s NFC championship game. It’s the Niners’ whining in the aftermath of that Eagles victory. It’s Haason Reddick answering back with smack talk. It’s Deebo Samuel calling James Bradberry “trash.”
It’s so much that it’s easy to forget about the quarterbacks, which is difficult to do in this league and especially in this game. Because Jalen Hurts might just be the NFL’s most valuable player, and his counterpart might just be the NFL’s best story.
Hurts is admired and beloved here, but Brock Purdy would be a god in Philadelphia. A god. The last player picked in the 2022 draft, leading the league in completion percentage, passer rating, and yards per attempt, throwing 19 touchdown passes and just six interceptions? Would it matter if Purdy’s excellence were a product of Nick Sirianni and Brian Johnson’s system and play-calling, as is often the accusation against him (and, in many regards, the reality) in Kyle Shanahan’s offense?
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It would not matter. Brock Purdy would be the latest and maybe the most lovable underdog in the city that goes gaga for any athlete who had a modicum of adversity to overcome, and now here he is, standing with Samuel and Christian McCaffrey and George Kittle, standing between the Eagles and the No. 1 seed in the conference.
“He’s a winner and just continues to win,” Sirianni said. “I think you saw that all last year and also what he’s doing this year. I think he’s got good athleticism, I think he knows where to go with the football in a timely fashion, and I think he is accurate going there. Those are the things you want in a quarterback, and so hats off to him and Kyle and their staff for putting him in good positions and continuing to develop this guy.”
Listed now at 6-foot-1 and 220 pounds, Purdy put up excellent numbers over his four years as Iowa State’s starter: 81 TDs, 33 INTs, a 67.7 completion percentage. But he was deemed neither tall enough nor sturdy enough to withstand the physical punishment that an NFL QB might take. (That evaluation just might have been on the money, given that Reddick knocked him out of the NFC title game with a UCL-tearing hit.)
What he has done since the 49ers made him “Mr. Irrelevant” in April 2022, taking him on that draft’s third day, in its seventh round, with the 262nd overall pick, is simple: He has given them cover for their other mistakes and misevaluations of the quarterback position.
For a guru who supposedly runs a QB-friendly, plug-and-play offense, Shanahan has sure had a tough time finding a starter with any staying power. The Niners reached a Super Bowl in 2019-20 and an NFC championship game in 2021-22 in spite of the erratic Jimmy Garoppolo as much as they did because of him. And their gamble to trade up to the No. 3 pick in the 2021 draft to get Trey Lance would be one of the worst player-personnel blunders in league history if Purdy hadn’t turned out to be such a pleasant surprise.
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“Stories like him and Tom Brady, guys who are drafted lower-ish and go out and perform — all guys like me and him want are a chance,” said Tanner McKee, who, as a rookie and the Eagles’ third quarterback, is in exactly the same situation that Purdy was in last season before Lance and Garoppolo were lost to injury. “It’s the Tom Brady mentality of once you get that chance, you’re never going to look back.”
Brock Purdy hasn’t, not so far, but this might be his hardest, sternest test yet: the defending conference champions, in their home stadium, a club that seems at its best against the most challenging of opponents and in the most challenging of situations.
Great quarterback? We’ll see. Great story? No doubt. The ultimate underdog goes against the town and team that live for that label. Doesn’t mean the Eagles are going to lose to him Sunday. Just means it would be as thick as irony gets if they did.