Brock Purdy’s stint as the 49ers’ starting quarterback in the regular season was brief, but his productivity in five starts and a sixth game where he took a majority of the snaps under center was successful enough to earn him All-Rookie honors from the Pro Football Writers of America.
The PFWA listed Purdy as the QB on the 27-player roster that includes 11 on offense, 11 on defense and five special teams selections.
Purdy came on in Week 13 when Jimmy Garoppolo suffered a broken foot. He completed 25-of-37 throws for 210 yards with two touchdowns and one interception while leading the 49ers to a 33-17 win over the Dolphins. He didn’t take his foot off the gas after that, going 5-0 as a starter while completing 68.6 percent of his throws for 1,098 yards with 11 touchdowns and two interceptions in the regular season.
However, the 49ers’ rookie signal caller didn’t have much competition from his fellow first-year QBs. Only four rookie quarterbacks threw more than 100 passes this year: Purdy, Pittsburgh’s Kenny Pickett, Atlanta’s Desmond Ridder and Miami’s Skylar Thompson.
Of those four QBs, Purdy led them all in completion rate, touchdowns, touchdown rate, yards per attempt, yards per completion and QB rating. His 107.3 rating was 21.4 points higher than the second place Ridder, who started four games.
Purdy’s Rookie of the Year argument hits a snag considering his relatively limited amount of snaps, but it’s clear that he was the NFL’s best first-year signal caller, so seeing Mr. Irrelevant on the PFWA All-Rookie team makes a ton of sense.
