Instead of belaboring the obvious, that the San Francisco 49ers are struggling because they are disproportionately dependent on a handful of special veteran skill-position players who also tend to accumulate frequent traveler miles on the injury report, let’s focus on something we have missed about this team’s yearly trip into the abyss that causes us to wonder whether the run is over. (Hint: it’s not!)
Brock Purdy has been playing well over a stretch of time in which he hasn’t had the ultimate quarterback security blanket in Christian McCaffrey. In Week 3, he was also without George Kittle, whose presence is both a physical and mathematical game-changer on every down, that allows the 49ers to play against defenses of their choosing. And, after Kyle Shanahan played Purdy during meaningless snaps this offseason, also without his best skill-position players, minus his starting offensive line and without Shanahan calling the plays, it was clear he wanted to see how a quarterback in line to receive $60 million a year would play during the lean years when McCaffrey, Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Kyle Juszczyk and Trent Willliams have phased out of the picture.
