The 49ers’ decision to trade Trey Lance was a loud confirmation that San Francisco moved on from the No. 3 pick in the 2021 draft and set its sites on a future with quarterback Brock Purdy – the No. 262 pick in the 2022 draft.
Surely no voice in that decision was louder than head coach Kyle Shanahan’s, who now has what former NFL QB and ESPN analyst Robert Griffin III calls the best of both worlds under center.
Buy 49ers TicketsGriffin joined Kevin Clark on Clark’s new show ‘This is Football’ and talked about why he thinks Shanahan and the 49ers never figured things out with Lance.
“My issue with Trey Lance and Kyle is that I thought that Trey Lance would allow Kyle and the 49ers to take that next step as a team,” Griffin said. “Because Kyle loves guys that are predictable, right? Look at our team in Washington with myself and Kirk Cousins. Kirk was a guy that they knew ‘hey, if we draw this play up, he’s gonna go boom, boom, boom, boom and get it to where we think it should go.’ Whereas guys like myself, Jalen Hurts, Patrick Mahomes, all these guys – there’s a little more creativity to the game. It’s not that you’re trying to draw outside the lines, but you do. And I thought Trey could provide that for Kyle because I think that’s his kryptonite. Kyle’s a control freak. Brock Purdy gives him a little bit of both worlds. He gives him the predictability of, ‘hey, he’s gonna go through his reads and do this, this, this, this,’ but he can also create on the back end. They just liked it more from Brock than they got it from Trey.”
Griffin was the No. 2 overall pick of Washington in the 2012 draft. He had a lot of success as a rookie, but injuries and organizational turmoil kept his career from ever really taking off.
While the term ‘control freak’ may come off as strong, it makes a lot of sense as to why Shanahan has success with quarterbacks in the Kirk Cousins, Nick Mullens, Jimmy Garoppolo, Brock Purdy vein. There’s not a ton of creativity in that group, full stop, and certainly not enough to think any of them will ditch the offense to freelance.
Part of the reason the 49ers had so much success with Purdy under center last year was, as Griffin pointed out, Purdy’s ability to create outside the structure of the offense. An important caveat though is he typically only did that when he had to. Sometimes his receivers were covered up, and sometimes the pressure got home and forced him to try and make a play.
There’s plenty Purdy still has to prove entering his second NFL season and first as a full-time starter. He still has to be consistently excellent within the structure of the offense, but the ability to create outside of that might be the difference between the 49ers winning and losing a Super Bowl with Purdy under center. If that freelance playmaking is ultimately helping San Francisco score points at the 33.5 PPG clip they were at the final six weeks of last season, Shanahan will have to concede some control to the QB in order to bring home the elusive Lombardi Trophy.
