Colin Cowherd Spent Three Years Calling Brock Purdy a System Quarterback. This Week He Changed His Mind.
Purdy leads the NFL in completion percentage. His most persistent critic now says he is playing as well as anyone in football — while still naming the system twice.
The longest-running quarterback argument in American football has always had a stable cast. On one side, people who point at Brock Purdy's production. On the other, people who point at Kyle Shanahan, Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle and Trent Williams and ask how much of that production belongs to the quarterback. Colin Cowherd has spent three years leading the second group. This week, on his own show, he switched sides — and the way he did it is more interesting than the fact that he did.
Useful next steps
Purdy's first two games gave him something to switch on. He leads the league in completion percentage at 80.8, the figure NBC Sports Bay Area reported alongside Cowherd's reversal. Against Miami he went 20-of-22 for 287 yards in a 35-13 win, and Next Gen Stats recorded him a perfect 10-for-10 on passes of ten or more air yards — the most completions without an incompletion on downfield throws since Week 5 of 2021.
I think Purdy's playing as good a quarterback as anybody in the league right now. I really do, Matt. Talk about seeing the field, Shanahan's offense, this offense they run, how difficult is it? Because it's like the kid's mastering it.— Colin Cowherd, host of The Herd, speaking to Matt Hasselbeck (via NBC Sports Bay Area, Sept 22)
Read that concession carefully and the old argument is still inside it. Cowherd names Shanahan's offense twice in the sentence where he praises Purdy, and his framing of the case he used to make is unusually candid: "My take was always, well, you get Christian McCaffrey, Kittle, Trent Williams, Deebo — you've got the keys to a Mercedes right out of college." What changed for him was not the supporting cast but what he now sees in the player: "I think he sees the field. Forget arm movement — I think he sees it as well as anybody. Watching his head, I mean, he watches the whole field." He was talking to Matt Hasselbeck, who has argued the other side of this for years, and the concession was pointed enough that it did not need a reply.
The reversal, and what survived it
"You've got the keys to a Mercedes right out of college."
"Purdy's playing as good a quarterback as anybody in the league right now."
Names "Shanahan's offense" twice in the same sentence as the praise.
Matt Hasselbeck, who has argued the other side of the Purdy question for years.
League-leading completion percentage at 80.8, per NBC Sports Bay Area.
20-of-22 for 287 yards, and a perfect 10-for-10 on throws of 10+ air yards per Next Gen Stats.
The skeptical case did not stop being true because its loudest advocate stopped making it. Purdy is producing these numbers inside the most quarterback-friendly scheme in the sport, with Shanahan calling the plays, and two games — one of them a twenty-two point win over Miami — is a thin basis on which to overturn a three-year evaluation. The strongest version of the argument was never about talent anyway. It was about separability: whether anyone can say what Purdy is worth independent of where he plays, and nothing that happened in September answers that. What has changed is the direction the evidence points. Mike Florio moved San Francisco from tenth to fifth in his Week 3 power rankings and wrote that "Brock Purdy is making a push for the list of top-10 quarterbacks. Maybe the top five." When a player's critics and his advocates start converging, the interesting question stops being who is right and becomes what would ever count as proof.
Cowherd changed his mind and kept his reasoning, which is the most honest thing anyone in this argument has done in three years.
Player Or System
Going 10-for-10 on downfield throws is not a scheme artifact; someone has to see the coverage and make the throw.
Two games, the most quarterback-friendly offense in football, and a critic who still names the scheme while conceding.
Nothing available this season. Separability is only ever tested by a change of address, which is why the argument never dies.
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Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area — Purdy earns praise from a longtime critic, NBC Sports Bay Area — Purdy's passing feat in the win over Miami, ProFootballTalk — Week 3 power rankings