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Willard and Dibs discuss the differences between how Brock Purdy and Justin Herbert are discussed by those around the NFL.
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00:00I'm trying to think of what the comp is here.
00:01What do you think, by the way?
00:03Justin Herbert or Brock Purdy?
00:05It's Herbert.
00:06It's Justin Herbert.
00:08You'd trade him if they offered it right now.
00:10Trade him!
00:11Would you?
00:11Yes, I would.
00:12Absolutely.
00:12See, that's interesting to me.
00:13Part of my answer on that is...
00:16Trade him!
00:16Do I get to keep Shanahan?
00:18Um, yeah.
00:19Shanahan!
00:20Well, then, yes.
00:22I'd rather have Justin Herbert.
00:23And I think that I love Brock Purdy, but...
00:26And that's another one of our jobs.
00:28I do love Brock Purdy.
00:30Not insulting Brock Purdy, but...
00:31But, exactly.
00:32Thank you for that.
00:33I think Justin Herbert in the right system with the right coach, and I think this is the system
00:38and this is the coach, and honestly, Jim Harbaugh, he, for me, he's overrated.
00:45Okay.
00:46He's overrated.
00:48He won in Michigan because they blatantly cheated, and the cat was out of the bag and he left,
00:55and he won at UCSD, or, I'm sorry, USD.
00:59Great.
01:00You know, cute little story.
01:02I mean, he's won everywhere he's been.
01:03But, Stanford, he didn't win.
01:05He didn't win at all.
01:05No, not at all.
01:07Niners didn't win at all.
01:08No, but they went to...
01:09I mean...
01:10Michigan cheated and won.
01:11He's been good everywhere he's gone.
01:13He has, but tell me what quarterback he's had that he had the quarterback and they got
01:18better.
01:19I haven't seen it.
01:20I don't think that he's a quarterback whisperer.
01:22No, I don't think he's a quarterback whisperer.
01:25I just, again, I don't see us do for others what we do for Justin.
01:31It's like, you're going to be somewhere for seven years.
01:33It's not really going to quite work, but if we gave you this, and if we gave you that,
01:38I mean, on the real, if you want to transfer what you just said to almost any quarterback,
01:44the data would suggest through the years, if I gave anybody Shanahan, they'd get a lot
01:48better.
01:49They don't all get Shanahan.
01:50Right.
01:51And I'm a big believer of when, and this is true of all things in life, okay?
01:56Marriages, everything.
01:57You find one that works, hold on to it.
01:59I ain't trading it for a maybe.
02:01I know you all think you know what would happen if Justin Herbert played with Kyle Shanahan.
02:06You think you know, but you don't.
02:08Would it be a better version of himself?
02:10I'd gather yes.
02:11Probably.
02:12I would think.
02:13That's been the data.
02:14But there's no way to know, number one, and there's certainly no way to know if it would
02:19equal to better things than what Brock has produced.
02:23It just, there's no way to ever sort of win or lose that debate.
02:28Exactly.
02:29All you can look at is situations.
02:30And I look at Jacksonville as a great example where Trevor Lawrence now has Liam Cohn.
02:35And I know it's one game in, but last year he looked like a totally different and better
02:41quarterback.
02:42Caleb Williams got Ben Johnson last year, and he suddenly was no longer a head-scratching
02:48maybe bust in, I mean, again, small sample.
02:52You put up 59 points against a bad team, and it's going to look like, oh my God, Ben Johnson
02:58and Caleb Williams.
02:59So I do think you could look at certain quarterbacks who got upgrades in their play caller and their
03:03coaches, and they've gotten better.
03:06Let's go to the phones on this.
03:07888-957-9570 is the number.
03:11How about Matt in San Rafael?
03:13Hi, Matt.
03:14Thank you for calling in.
03:15What do you got?
03:15Hey.
03:17Hey, guys.
03:18So I look at it a lot like Mark, you do.
03:22And that is, you've got a guy that checks all the boxes physically.
03:26And then you've got a guy that is adequate or above average, physically lax in a couple
03:33of areas.
03:34But he has the one thing that I think makes for a great quarterback, and that is processing
03:39and the ability to stay cool under pressure.
03:43You look at the greatest quarterback the Niners ever had was a scrawny little guy.
03:47He was a great athlete.
03:48Don't get me wrong.
03:49But he certainly wasn't that gorgeous guy who could chuck the ball through a wall.
03:54To me, it's sort of like, do you want to have the date that you want your friends to see?
03:59Or do you want the date that you want your parents to see?
04:02And the one that you want to actually bring more to the table than just the, let's just
04:09say the physical traits, the one that is going to bring something more to the table to me
04:16is Purdy.
04:16And, you know, Dan's talking about how, oh, he's got to have a coordinator like Kyle.
04:23Well, he's got Kyle's coordinator.
04:25And he's played now as many games as Brock has under the same offensive system when he
04:32actually, he was the number one through all training camp.
04:34And Brock was the three.
04:36Brock came in and played one game, came in against Miami and lit it up.
04:40And he's never lit up.
04:41So to me, that's the true test is when a guy comes in and plays in the system, is he
04:47up in his game?
04:48And Herbert wasn't, at least to this point.
04:51Matt, thank you.
04:52I think it's a very fair call.
04:54You know, again, like week one overreactions, we can do this in so many directions and it's
04:59actually kind of fun.
05:00So I don't think the Chargers have been eliminated and I don't think Justin Herbert's a bad quarterback.
05:05But the idea of Kyle Shanahan play calls, let's talk about that for a second.
05:10You don't think Mike McDaniel knows how to do those?
05:13You don't think he knows how to do it?
05:15I mean, he's an extension of Kyle.
05:18You don't think he knows how to call those plays and do the pre-snap motion?
05:23And he was supposed to be a run game genius.
05:27In fact, Kyle credited him with, you know, teaching him some things here or there.
05:33So one game in and that's just one game.
05:36You played a bad defense and didn't score any points.
05:38Well, we don't know what their defense is like.
05:40I mean, we think that they're a bad defense because it's Arizona and we don't, we don't
05:45like know who these people are.
05:47They actually might be better than we think.
05:49That's true.
05:50They were, they are largely the same group of last year and they were bad.
05:54If they all worked really hard this summer, maybe they will be, yes, maybe they'll be
05:59better.
05:59New regime.
06:00It's a new regime.
06:00It's a new regime.
06:01It's very true.
06:02I mean, new regime and new team and they're 1-0.
06:04So if you want to overreact, you can say that, well, I mean, Arizona, terrible defense, but
06:09I don't know if that's necessarily the case.
06:11And you go back to last year in the playoff game that they had against New England, they
06:16had no running back.
06:17And I would, I would, you know, defy anybody here in this room or that room to tell me
06:22who the Chargers running back was.
06:24Last year?
06:25In the playoffs.
06:27Well, they, uh, New England.
06:29I don't believe they, they play New England.
06:31They lost to New England.
06:32I think it was 16 to three.
06:34Okay.
06:34Yeah.
06:35First game.
06:35Probably come on if it all.
06:36Right.
06:37And do you know who the leading rusher was for the Chargers?
06:39It was Justin Herbert.
06:41Okay.
06:41So you couldn't run the ball.
06:43Right.
06:43And so Herbert's on the road with no run game.
06:46And he's the guy who had to lead the team in rushing.
06:49I'm just saying that everything is so circumstantial.
06:52Of course we look at Owen three in the playoffs and every game is different.
06:55And two years prior, he threw four picks.
06:57Okay.
06:57That's like a CJ Stroud type performance.
07:00And we bury Stroud for it.
07:02So we should probably be equally harsh on Herbert.
07:04And wasn't he up 28 to three at Jacksonville?
07:06And then something like that.
07:08Maybe it wasn't quite 28 to three.
07:10Might've been 27 to three.
07:11And they lost.
07:12Yep.
07:13They lost.
07:13He didn't go score any more points.
07:15No.
07:15And Jacksonville came back and won the game.
07:17Was he, uh, the edge rusher or the linebacker in that game?
07:20I can't remember.
07:20I mean, this is the same thing.
07:22People hang around Kyle Shanahan, Matt Ryan, and Julio Jones, because if you have that big
07:27of a lead, one way to protect it is to keep scoring, but they couldn't do it.
07:31So, I mean, that's both sides of the coin.
07:33Sure.
07:33The defense is the one that gives it up, but the offense is allowed to keep scoring and
07:36they stopped.
07:37They can.
07:37Yep.
07:38Yeah.
07:38So, I mean, look, um, all of it, all of it, I don't think anybody's crazy.
07:43If you would rather have Justin Herbert, I think I've arrived at a spot and this is why
07:48I changed my, my answer.
07:50I've arrived at a spot where I'm like, this works.
07:53I'd rather not mess with it.
07:55I understand where you're coming from.
07:56If you say, yeah, I'd trade Brock Purdy for Justin Herbert.
07:59You said it.
08:00I think Grandy still feels it, but he's a quack quack.
08:03So I never know if that's a legit point or not.
08:06And there's a lot of people calling and texting in right now who would do that trade.
08:10And I get it.
08:11I get, I really do.
08:12I understand who Justin Herbert is.
08:14I understand what he brings to the table, but for my money, I'm like, I just think that
08:20finding a quarterback that works is such a, a, a, a, a boy, that's such a care thing.
08:28Like you gotta be so careful when you have something that works.
08:33I'm like, just hang on to it.
08:35Don't mess with the sauce and the ingredients for something that is get ready for it on paper.
08:42You think works on paper.
08:44Justin Herbert with the Niners would work on paper the same way.
08:47The Rams are never going to lose a game on paper, right?
08:50Or the Philadelphia Eagles a decade ago were a dream team on paper, et cetera, et cetera.
08:56So extending that argument, then you wouldn't trade Brock Purdy for anybody.
09:00Um, like, because Josh Allen, fair retort, Josh Allen.
09:05I mean, it seems like on paper he would come here and he would be amazing, but we know that
09:11this is what it is.
09:12Brock Purdy is really good and he's on his way to becoming the highest rated quarterback
09:16in quarterback rating.
09:17He's about a month away from being numero uno.
09:21So based on your, the way you broke it down, you wouldn't trade him for anyone.
09:25Well, um, it's a fair retort.
09:27I don't know if what I'm saying means that I wouldn't trade him for anyone.
09:30I think when you have something that works, you hold onto it, but there's got to be a
09:35limit on everything.
09:36I mean, Josh Allen is also somebody who has won playoff games.
09:40He has taken teams very, very deep into, into January and is way more talented than
09:47Justin Herbert.
09:48So what I make an exception in that case, I mean, yeah, I'd probably roll the dice on
09:53that, but I do believe it is a roll of the dice because until you've seen something work,
09:59it doesn't work.
09:59Right.
10:00You never know.
10:01Yeah.
10:01You never know.
10:02Justin Herbert is not good enough for me to roll those dice.
10:04That's what I'm saying.
10:05You would look at probably my homes and Josh Allen and probably a very small list beyond
10:12that who you would, you know, try to make that dice roll.
10:15Yeah.
10:16Yeah, probably.
10:17I mean, you know, Lamar and Burrow would be very, very tantalizing, et cetera, et cetera,
10:22as would others.
10:23There's a lot of good ones out there, but, uh, let's see.
10:26How about, uh, Randy Castro Valley?
10:28Hi, Randy.
10:29Thanks for calling in.
10:31Hey, can you hear?
10:32Yeah.
10:32You guys got me?
10:33Got you.
10:35Hey, in my opinion, Justin Herbert's trajectory is he's almost starting to look like
10:42Carson Palmer when he was in Cincinnati.
10:45Huh?
10:45I would never trade.
10:47I mean, Carson Palmer had all the bells and whistles, looked great.
10:52I mean, and at that time when the Raiders traded for him, I'm thinking maybe the Raiders
10:58had something going on.
10:59But as for the 49ers offense, Brock Purdy processes things so fast.
11:07And he's been with Shanahan for five years.
11:10And I believe that, I mean, he's only going to get better.
11:15What's your opinion?
11:16Um, I think we're, we've watched him get better.
11:19I re thanks, Randy.
11:20Um, yeah, this is always an interesting one for me because I know there are a lot of people
11:25who think that Brock is not even a human being.
11:28He's just an extension of Kyle Shanahan, the puppeteer, and therefore can't get any better.
11:34I've never thought that.
11:35I like it to me.
11:36It looks like Brock Purdy has gotten better.
11:38I think he's a better player now than he was when he was a rookie.
11:41We've only seen one game this year.
11:43Last year got kind of wonky because of injury, though, when he did play, the production was
11:49very high level.
11:50I know the one criticism of him coming out of last year was he didn't perform at the
11:54highest level against playoff teams and playoff level defense.
11:58Well, how you like last Thursday?
12:00Was that feel like to you?
12:01I don't know.
12:02Does that start to change the thinking?
12:05Best thing I can do there is kind of go with the people who are there working with him
12:10and the Trent Williams of the world and the Fred Warners of the world will tell you that
12:14he has absolutely gotten a lot better.
12:16Um, sometimes in ways that we don't see leadership qualities, et cetera.
12:20Yeah.
12:21And I think that the one thing that's the most difficult to actually quantify because it's
12:26not quantifiable is the thing about judgment and being able to read and react and, you
12:32know, make the play that he needs to make.
12:34And, you know, it seems like he's going to give you probably one or more a game where
12:39it's a bad throw and it might cost you a pick.
12:42And against the Rams last week, last Thursday, he had a couple and one was fortunate that
12:47got deflected in his offensive lineman, caught it.
12:49And the other one, he actually did throw a pick.
12:51And so that's kind of every quarterback ever.
12:54No quarterbacks can have a perfect game where they make no bad throws or no bad decisions.
12:59It seems to me that Brock Purdy's evolution has been limiting those types of mistakes.
13:05And even when he does make those mistakes, he bounces back.
13:07Yep.
13:08Uh, let's see.
13:08Next up, Joe in Sacramento.
13:10Hi, Joe.
13:10Thanks for calling in.
13:11What do you got?
13:13Hey, fellas.
13:14First time caller.
13:15Huge fan of the show.
13:17Look, man, I got Brock Purdy over Justin Herbert.
13:20And here's why.
13:20His, I will take Brock Purdy's elusiveness and decision-making process over Justin Herbert's
13:26pocket presence and durability any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
13:29In 2025, Brock Purdy had a 9% pressure-to-sack ratio, which was lowest in the NFL.
13:36That means he can escape the pocket, fellas.
13:38I think that Purdy has a bad rep, not because of him or the team.
13:43It's because of quarterbacks before him.
13:45Jimmy Garoppolo, man.
13:46The team was pushing out this narrative saying that he was a franchise quarterback.
13:50He was our guy.
13:51And Jimmy G did what Jimmy G did, man.
13:54Like Shanahan turned Matt Ryan into an MVP.
13:57And so, you know, I think Purdy's our guy.
14:00He's been our guy.
14:01And I've got our Niners going to the Super Bowl and winning, provided that they stay healthy.
14:05It's the same old song, man.
14:07But Brock Purdy over Justin Herbert.
14:10It's going to be a great season.
14:11I'm looking forward to it.
14:12Go Niners and go 95-7 the game.
14:15Okay, Joe.
14:15Thank you very much.
14:16Welcome, Joe.
14:18Appreciate that.
14:20Look, I do think we've arrived at a spot, maybe for the first time ever.
14:24I don't think this is a stupid conversation anymore.
14:28I know that, you know, you tried to do this last year, and if you said Purdy, you'd make people
14:35mad.
14:36Like, people would be like, laughable.
14:39Ridiculous.
14:40I don't know.
14:40Like, I don't think this is a silly conversation anymore.
14:45And I very much think that it would be great.
14:49And you said this a minute ago, and you're 100% right.
14:52Everybody gets to come up with their list, and whatever the hell makes your list, that's what makes your list.
14:56Floats your boat, whatever, and all that's cool.
15:00But I think we're getting to a spot where we're better.
15:04We're smarter.
15:05We're starting to understand the idiosyncrasies of positions.
15:10This goes to analytics and all the great video work that the Baldies and people like that, JT O'Sullivan, are
15:17doing out there that we watch and consume.
15:19And we're understanding that quarterbacking is not grab ball, see receiver, throw ball, you know, high-five a cheerleader.
15:27Like, that's not – there's so much more to it.
15:30And my belief is so much of what Brock does that works, and we look at it and go, how
15:38did that little six-foot guy do that?
15:41There's so much going on that we don't see that he does well.
15:44I think that, to me, appears to be very obvious.
15:48Yes, and I think that it is that cerebral part that you're talking about, which is, you know, either pre
15:53-snap or at the snap or when you break the huddle,
15:56he's able to look at the defense and assess what they're trying to do for the most part.
16:01Now, Mike McDonald in Seattle, the D.C., he's a guy who confuses everybody,
16:06so that'll actually be an interesting one to watch when Brock Purdy faces that Seahawks defense again
16:12because what Brock does so well is assess, but what Seattle does so well is confused.
16:18And so he gets to the line, and he figures out, he thinks, what's going on, and then Seattle will
16:24shift it.
16:24But you are listening to 95.7 The Game, KGMZ FM and HC1 San Francisco on Odyssey Sports Station,
16:30the home of the Golden State Warriors and Valkyries, always live on the free Odyssey app,
16:33coming to you live from the Laughing Mug Studios.
16:35This conversation started not because Justin Herbert lost a football game as a big favorite yesterday necessarily,
16:43but they did kind of take the dog-of-the-week honors,
16:47and the Niners kind of are one of the teams that took captain-of-the-week honors.
16:51And so I wonder what needs to happen for Brock Purdy's draft status to no longer be a part of
17:00the conversation,
17:01and then I wonder the same thing for Justin Herbert.
17:04When does, being the seventh pick in the draft, being 6'4", having a howitzer of an arm, good legs
17:13as well,
17:15you know, now he's got a beautiful girlfriend up in the suite.
17:19Also great legs.
17:20Yes.
17:21Like, when does that stuff stop mattering, in our opinion, about a player?
17:29When does he have to win a playoff game?
17:32Just give me the year.
17:34Is it 20...
17:36What do we got?
17:382029.
17:39Is it 2042?
17:40Okay, 2029.
17:42So, he gets a decade in the league without winning a playoff game before anybody's even allowed to change their
17:51opinion about him.
17:53That rings to me.
17:56I'm not going to call it wrong, because there's no such thing as wrong in this debate.
18:00I'm going to call it unfair.
18:02That's unfair.
18:03We don't do that for other quarterbacks, even if they're taken in the third round.
18:08Well, it depends on...
18:09Or the fourth round.
18:09We don't do that for Jalen Hurts.
18:10We do.
18:11Well, he's won the Super Bowl.
18:12I know.
18:12But in Philadelphia, he started last year.
18:15I mean, he came out of winning the Super Bowl, and people were already mad at him by week four.
18:19They're maniacs.
18:20Of course they are.
18:21And I look at Dak Prescott as a good test case.
18:24Now, he actually has two playoff wins.
18:26I'm looking at it here.
18:27He's two and five in the playoffs, and this is now his 11th year in the NFL.
18:33They've won two playoff games, and every year, much like Philly, they're out for Dak.
18:38They want Dak's job, et cetera.
18:40They want him out, and then this year, okay, it's our year, and I kind of bought into it, literally,
18:45on Kalshi.
18:46Trade on anything.
18:47I went plus 10 wins, 10 or more wins, and that trade right now is not looking great.
18:53After one week, I'm not going to sell the trade, but Dak Prescott's a guy, I think, that kind of
18:58gets that same sort of scrutiny,
19:00and he's actually won a couple of games.
19:01You might have just tapped into something.
19:03You want to know why Justin Herbert doesn't face any criticism?
19:07I don't know that there are that many people who care.
19:11Like Charger fans?
19:12Yeah.
19:13And you know what's interesting?
19:15I was talking to someone last night who was at the game, and he reported to me, like, the Chargers
19:20have made some inroads.
19:21Like, the start of the game, it was, like, Charger-heavy, loud.
19:27Powder blue and gold?
19:28You could not hear kind of an environment at SoFi Stadium, and they weren't Cardinal fans.
19:34Those are Cardinals.
19:35Right.
19:36And he's like, it was very, very home-heavy and loud and intense, and then in the fourth quarter, they
19:41were gone.
19:42Like, they left.
19:44They went home because the game was going so poorly.
19:46But he said, no, the fans were there and ready to go.
19:50But, you know, you called Philadelphia fans maniacs, and they are.
19:53And the 49er fans are passionate and maybe the largest fan base out there.
19:58Same with Dallas, huge fan base.
20:01So, some of these quarterbacks, it's like, okay, we really, really ask for a lot.
20:07I don't think that people ask for a lot from Justin Herbert.
20:10There's just not enough people who care when it doesn't go well.
20:13I just texted one of my best friends, born and raised in San Diego.
20:17He's still there.
20:18He's a teacher.
20:19He's a football coach, et cetera.
20:21I just asked him, and I don't know if he'll get back to me, but are you still a Charger
20:24fan?
20:25Because I think he is, but he used to be a super diehard, we're going to the Murph and the
20:30whole thing.
20:31To your point about, like, Charger fans, are you that agitated?
20:35And I know that here, the 49ers, they were in the city.
20:39Now they're in the South Bay.
20:41The 49er fan base is, even before the Raiders left, it's Northern California.
20:45You'd get people, and you still get people, who will get on Amtrak from Sacramento
20:51and take the train all the way out here just to go to a game.
20:54So the rabidity, if it's a word, the rabid nature of fan bases, I do think, plays into this argument.
21:01408, have you watched many Charger games?
21:04If not, sit this one out.
21:05I used to work at the flagship station.
21:08Fair.
21:09You used to?
21:10I used to work.
21:12I thought that might have been a part of the text.
21:13No, no, no, no.
21:13I used to work at the flagship station.
21:15Was it the 9690?
21:16I used to, no, it was not.
21:19Okay.
21:19That was way before that.
21:20And I also used to, I used to cover the Charger games in the LaDainian Tomlinson, Lorenzo Neal.
21:27I was at every single home game.
21:29Go to hell, Willard.
21:30Okay.
21:30I think I've been to more games at Qualcomm Stadium than I have at Levi's.
21:34Wow.
21:35For years, I was at every home game.
21:37Won't you guys go to hell?
21:39Well, yes.
21:40That's fine, too.
21:41Anyway, I just wanted to answer that text.
21:42No, and that's fair, and you talk about a poor ingress and egress, you get on the eight.
21:48You got to take the eight now.
21:50You get the five, and you take the eight, and it's about seven miles from the five on the eight,
21:54and that thing might take you a lifetime now.
21:57Richie, John, Jonah, and everybody else, let's keep it going.
22:01This is fascinating to me.
22:03I'm not, I got no problems with Herbert.
22:05I got no problems with Purdy.
22:06I just think the conversation's unfair.
22:07I think some people need to just, like, never throw a pick, and other people need to win one playoff
22:12game in a decade.
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