- 12 hours ago
Willard and Dibs debate if Brock Purdy or Kyle Shanahan -- or someone else -- is the 49ers' MVP through four weeks of the season.
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00:00It's going to be hard for me.
00:01What?
00:02It's going to be hard for me.
00:03What's going to be hard for you, Mark?
00:05They're 4-0.
00:06You're going to make me choose.
00:07You're the president of Brakistan.
00:09Yes, I am.
00:09And I just threw this out to the group earlier on the thread.
00:13Don't leave out.
00:14I also summer at Kyle Shanahan's guest house.
00:18Summer?
00:18I mean, you're constantly there.
00:20You may or may not have been the first on the scene after his car accident.
00:25Nobody knows.
00:26I was in the backseat.
00:27You may have been.
00:29Possibly.
00:30You're a big fan.
00:31You're a Shanistan, but you're also the president of Brakistan.
00:35Yes.
00:36And, you know, you don't have to just choose between the two.
00:39And the question I threw out to the group earlier is, like, who is the first four-game MVP?
00:45Is it Brock Purdy, Kyle Shanahan?
00:48Is it Raheem Morris or Fred Warner?
00:50I threw those four out as the four.
00:53You could pick a fifth at 888-957-9570, or you could just roll with whatever you want.
00:59That, to me, was interesting because Raheem Morris and the defense, what he's done, five-man front.
01:06We're blitzing with six.
01:07We're going to show six and bring four.
01:09We're going to bring three.
01:10Fred Warner has been like a peanut punch waiting to happen, and his running mate is right there,
01:16and they're just lighting people up defensively.
01:18They've all been awesome.
01:19Yeah.
01:20And the list keeps going.
01:22Sure.
01:23Go to Dre.
01:24You can go to George Kittle.
01:25Wow.
01:26George Kittle wins the most inspirational award.
01:28You can be sure of that.
01:31With Mike Evans closely behind him.
01:34So there's just plenty of, as they say, flowers to go around right now.
01:40The San Francisco 49ers are 4-0.
01:45They have, you know, they've taken apart two teams who were in the Final Four last year,
01:51the Super Bowl favorite.
01:52They just haven't really made a whole lot of mistakes yet.
01:55They look like the cleanest team in football with regard to penalties and turnovers and all this stuff.
02:01So I just, it's hard to pick one because there's so many compliments to go around.
02:09And if you find that to be milk and cookies, then that's on you.
02:13The 49ers have been phenomenal.
02:15And that should be pointed out more often than it gets pointed out when a team or an individual does
02:24amazing stuff.
02:24And the 49ers have been amazing so far.
02:27But the answer to your question is Brock Purdy.
02:31It's Brock Purdy.
02:33And I'm not going to get into is Brock, like all the silly things we do.
02:37Is Brock more important than Kyle?
02:39Is Kyle more important than Brock?
02:40Who makes who?
02:41What about if you stuck them on another team?
02:43I mean, if you answer it that way, it's probably almost always going to be Kyle.
02:48I think he's a phenomenal coach.
02:50And coaching travels, obviously, in different ways because you then conduct and you build the personnel
02:58and you build it around your personnel.
03:00Kyle has been a coach in many, many places and been a very successful one throughout his career.
03:06But if you're asking me what is elevating the 49ers right now to a higher level than what we have
03:14seen them be in recent years,
03:16it is the building confidence, the mastery of what is being asked,
03:23and just the overall flexing of who Brock Purdy is, what he can do, his comfort level with what's going
03:32on,
03:33his ability to execute it.
03:35Brock Purdy has been the best player in the NFL so far this year.
03:39I don't hesitate to say that.
03:41And so I already knew that they were good.
03:44A lot of these people you just brought up, I already knew that they were good.
03:48But what is making the 49ers win pretty much all of their games by double digits?
03:54Yes, I know, Cardinals, whatever, fourth quarter.
03:57But really, really handle all four of their games where they were in control basically every,
04:04like almost the entire season.
04:06They have been in control of football games.
04:09And for me, it's, yeah, Brock Purdy.
04:12Brock Purdy is the answer.
04:13And you can look at just the raw numbers, which is, what, 10 touchdowns and one interception,
04:19the fact that he hasn't been sacked the entire year, or it's 11.
04:24All right, well, just feel free to stay to the mic.
04:26Well, I got to go get my plug.
04:28My computer's about to die.
04:29Yeah, I get that.
04:30And, you know, I can understand the need for you to plug in.
04:33So it's 11 to 1.
04:34Or you could go to the advanced metrics and friend of the program, Aaron Schatz,
04:40who was the creator of DVOA, which is defensive adjusted value over average,
04:47which is an advanced metric that shows you how any particular play does
04:52versus the average second and five play, for example,
04:55with the defense included as something that is adjusted for.
05:00And the 49ers, through four games, have the third best DVOA
05:05since they started tracking this back in 1977.
05:08So I'll just say that again so you can let the mumbo-jumbo part of it go away.
05:14Through four games, their pass offense is the third best we've seen in 50 seasons.
05:20So, and that's on an advanced metric.
05:23Their overall team is 11th best through four games in the same metric.
05:28And so they are in lofty company through four on basic metrics, advanced metrics,
05:34obviously the record at 4-0, and the simple things like he doesn't get sacked,
05:38they don't turn it over, they don't commit penalties,
05:40and they score almost every time in the red zone.
05:43Right.
05:43I mean, like I get this debate.
05:46We've all had it a lot.
05:48Does Kyle put Brock in his best position to be his best?
05:51Of course he does.
05:53Hello.
05:53So, I do think Kyle is worth quarterback rating points.
05:58I do think, like, just his presence, that is worth rating points for quarterbacks.
06:03Because actually, I do believe, if you do go into the history of this,
06:07I know Brock Purdy's about to become the highest-rated passer of all time.
06:10If you do the top 10, correct me if I'm wrong, Garoppolo's on it.
06:14I think he's about 9th or 10th.
06:15Yeah.
06:16Which is ridiculous.
06:17He's nowhere near the 9th or 10th best quarterback in the history of the game.
06:21So, yes, Kyle Shanahan has a numerical effect on his quarterback.
06:27I do believe that.
06:29But, Kyle Shanahan's been a coach in this league on some level,
06:33head coach, offensive coordinator, for a long time.
06:36They don't all do this.
06:37Matt Ryan won an MVP with Kyle Shanahan calling plays.
06:42His metrics are less than what Brock Purdy's doing right now.
06:46So, the idea that's like, does he elevate a quarterback?
06:49Sure.
06:50But, none of them have ever elevated to this.
06:54None of them have ever done this.
06:55And I really reject, though I respect the hell out of weaponry
07:00and what's happening contextually around a player at all times.
07:03I think that's the underrated thing that we don't talk enough about in sports.
07:07That said, the idea that weapons make a quarterback is silly to me.
07:14I've never seen it in my life.
07:16Give me an example of when a quarterback who was like mediocre guy
07:22got made because of weaponry around him.
07:26The opposite has been true many times.
07:29Many times.
07:30Tom Brady would go out there with, you know, Bob at wide receiver.
07:34And Bob would go for 108 yards and six catches.
07:38You'd be like, oh my God.
07:39But I've never in the history of this league,
07:42the only examples we use when the quarterback's not great
07:45and they win a Super Bowl is, oh, the defense was unbelievable.
07:49Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson, blah, blah, blah.
07:50But they didn't put up numbers like this.
07:52They never were MVP candidates.
07:55I think Garoppolo is probably the closest example I can think of
07:58where he was, you know, just kind of the shepherd of the offense
08:02and he had great weapons around him.
08:05And they went, you know, deep in the playoffs.
08:07They went to the Super Bowl.
08:08And I think that it was more of a byproduct of Shanahan and the weapons
08:11than it was, you know, Jimmy Garoppolo.
08:13But I would more point to Shanahan.
08:15Like, I just don't think you can quarterback where you're like,
08:18I'm just kind of here.
08:20And there's a good play caller.
08:22And then, you know, that perception that's been blown up a thousand times
08:25of Brock just dinks it over to Debo and he runs 80 yards.
08:29Like, it's just been debunked so many thousands of times.
08:32And by every metric, he leads the league in pushing the ball down the field
08:37and air yards and all of those things.
08:39So it's just flat out not true.
08:41And so other than that, I can't think of a time in my life
08:46where weapons made a quarterback.
08:48I've seen many times where it's the other way around.
08:51So, yes, Kyle is a piece of this.
08:55But to see quarterbacking at this level, these numbers, this rate of success,
09:01you cannot convince me that the quarterback is not playing
09:06like just delectable football.
09:09I mean, exquisite decision-making and delivery
09:14in terms of what's happening right now with this player.
09:17Well, even on Sunday, and you could look at Brock's numbers,
09:20which were not sparkly, and he wound up with, what, 56 yards on his final pass
09:26of the afternoon, and that definitely inflated his numbers.
09:30But beyond that, and Mark Schlereth, Stink, who joined us last segment,
09:34he talked about this, and he was absolutely right,
09:36where the game plan was we're going to keep it relatively basic early on,
09:41knowing that Denver's offense is not great.
09:43Denver doesn't score in the first half, so why take a lot of chances early in the game?
09:48And so I do think that Shanahan kept it mostly bland and conservative,
09:52and so Brock Purdy didn't take a lot of chances.
09:55He didn't make mistakes, and that's part of the key.
09:57And you get to the third quarter, and you started to open it up a little bit
10:01because Denver was getting a little bit softer on defense,
10:04and you were starting to win at the point of attack,
10:06and that's where Shanahan, I think, opened things up.
10:09What's your answer?
10:10My answer would be Kyle Shanahan, and it's not to say that Brock Purdy
10:14has not been phenomenal, and he has 11 touchdowns,
10:17and thank you for eventually correcting that.
10:20One interception.
10:21But beyond that, I think it's been Shanahan looking at all these games
10:26and the game plan, and I thought Sunday was a great example where, yeah,
10:30you go ahead and you know that you don't have to beat Denver in a shootout.
10:33So you come out, and you don't do anything too crazy.
10:36They ran a couple of end rounds and a toss that turned into a reverse,
10:41and you got Debo the ball in the backfield.
10:43I think that he approached the game with a certain mentality of,
10:47yeah, we want to score, of course, but we really want to score
10:50at the end of the half and then do the double up.
10:52So they march down, and they get a field goal, and it gets blocked,
10:55and then you come out, and you go three and out.
10:57But I thought that the game plan was one where they were really looking
11:01to put the hammer down in the second half, and they did.
11:04So, 888-957-9570 is the number.
11:07This is an interesting one, for example, and I want to further explain
11:11what I'm saying, and then we'll go to the phones here.
11:14707 brings up Sam Darnold.
11:16Says that's a mid-quarterback, but shined with the Vikings because of talent.
11:20I assume that you're talking about Justin Jefferson,
11:23and is now doing it with what he calls the best wide out in football,
11:27Jackson Smith and Jigba.
11:28That's an interesting one, but here's how I would respond to that.
11:31Sam is succeeding and playing well, but if you want to go to his numbers
11:37last year with the Seattle Seahawks, for example, he won the Super Bowl,
11:4125 touchdowns, 14 picks, was the 11th rated quarterback in the league.
11:47That doesn't match up to what I'm talking about with Brock.
11:51That suggests that Sam Darnold is playing well.
11:55It is good.
11:57He's good.
11:57He's not blowing the roof off of the numbers and it being all because of the
12:03weaponry around him.
12:05Sam Darnold has now succeeded in multiple places.
12:07I think we've got to settle with he's pretty good.
12:10I don't think he's great.
12:12He's pretty good.
12:13But the idea that weaponry and surroundings would elevate you to the best numbers
12:19the game has ever known, to me that just doesn't make sense.
12:24I just, I don't, I don't think that's real.
12:28And then here comes 415 with Kittle ran the whole field on a backward pass.
12:33A, not a backward pass, because that would be known as not a pass, number one.
12:38Number two, it has been debunked.
12:41Go look at the metrics.
12:43Go look at who leads the league every year in air yards.
12:46That's air yards.
12:47Not, like if you want to do the whole he throws the ball behind the line of scrimmage a lot,
12:52I got a name for you.
12:52His name's Josh Allen.
12:53Go look it up.
12:54Don't get mad at me because I'm saying it.
12:56Go look it up.
12:57Let AI tell me I'm wrong, and then you can call us.
13:00But I'm not wrong, because I've already looked it up.
13:03Like, the dink and dunk idea of Brock Purdy, flat out debunked, wrong, disproven hundreds
13:09of times.
13:10But Brock Purdy's the only one who can throw a screen pass, have it go to be a touchdown,
13:15and then people go see he can't actually play.
13:17Anybody can do that.
13:19Everybody throws screen passes.
13:20Tom Brady threw screen passes.
13:22Joe Montana threw screen passes.
13:24Everybody throws screen passes.
13:25It's okay if it goes well.
13:28That's not a demerit.
13:31But, like, I know the game that we all play with Brock Purdy.
13:34We've been doing it for five years now.
13:36Yeah, and then it makes sense when you look at it through the actual eyes of the stats
13:41and the reality.
13:42And, you know, we can go back to Sam Darnold in Minnesota.
13:44Forget Seattle, but go to Minnesota when they went 14-3, and he had a good year.
13:50He had a really solid year, but their defense was number five in points allowed, and they
13:56were number one in takeaways.
13:57And so Sam Darnold was in a structure of, all right, Sam, we liked what you did as a backup
14:02at San Francisco, and their head coach is really good with quarterbacks in the offense.
14:07But he had Justin Jefferson, and then they ran the ball a ton, and they kept their defense
14:12in a spot to where they could win, and they went 14-3.
14:15And even last year in Seattle, it was largely the same, where you had a two-headed monster
14:19at running back.
14:20You had an unbelievable defense.
14:21And so Sam Darnold, just be a guy, you know, 4,000 yards is good.
14:25Don't turn it over a bunch.
14:27Keep us in games, and even in the Super Bowl, there's a reason why he didn't win the MVP.
14:32It's because he was not the offensive star.
14:34Let's go to Matt in San Rafael.
14:35Hi, Matt.
14:36Thank you for calling in.
14:37What's going on?
14:39Hey, guys.
14:40Just Ed and Ho.
14:42So you could throw flowers in any number of directions you've touched on, two of the primary ones.
14:49I think a couple that might get considered, but it's not my choice, are Upton Stout and
14:56the three interior offensive linemen who, coming into the season, such a huge concern.
15:02Jake Brendel is playing phenomenal football.
15:04Dominic Poonie might be one of the best guards in the NFL right now.
15:08And Connor Colby is just not even discussed because he's playing so well.
15:12But to me, the problem is Raheem Morris, and here's why.
15:17You had Warner at this point last year, so he didn't get hurt until the Tampa Bay game.
15:22You had Bosa for a little bit more than we had him this year.
15:26And you had all of these other players, Mikel Williams and the two defensive tackles, as
15:33well as other players who are not on the field.
15:36Last week, I was going, who's number 47?
15:39Who's number 50?
15:40These are defensive linemen I had never heard of, nor did I know who they were.
15:45And the defense is far, far better than it was last year.
15:49It's not even comparable.
15:51Better than it's been the last two or three years.
15:53And this is all because Raheem Morris has figured out a way to let these guys play the
15:59kind of ball that they want to play.
16:01The defensive backfield looks phenomenal.
16:03These are the same guys that we wanted to jettison at the end of last season.
16:08So, to me, the fact that this team can rely on its defense when they have been the Achilles
16:15heel for the last two-plus seasons tells me that Morris is the reason that they're playing
16:21so well.
16:22And he's making, you know, a soap purse out of a sow's ear.
16:26But not saying these guys aren't good, but they're playing incredibly.
16:29Now, Dre is back.
16:31He and Warner are playing out of their heads.
16:33But if you didn't have the defensive linemen holding up their end and the defensive backs
16:37holding up their end, it wouldn't matter.
16:40But they are.
16:41And I give that to Raheem Morris.
16:42Matt, yeah, thank you for calling in.
16:45Listen, as I said off the top of this, I don't think there's any terrible answer here.
16:50I mean, I guess there's a terrible answer.
16:53You could just, like, throw out Khalid Kareem or something like that.
16:57I mean, there's bad answers.
16:59Not that he's done anything wrong.
17:01I'm just sure.
17:01It's kind of the randomness.
17:03Yeah.
17:03Yeah.
17:04But what I am getting at is this is an easy time to throw out compliments.
17:12These guys have been incredible.
17:14They've been incredible.
17:15Raheem Morris has been awesome.
17:17Fred Warner is the best linebacker in the league, and that has been true for a very long time.
17:23I think George Kittle is the best tight end in the league.
17:25Yes, even with Travis Kelsey running around, you can fantasy this and fantasy that.
17:30I'll take George Kittle.
17:32Kyle Shanahan, in my opinion, I think kind of cemented himself last year as the coach you would want.
17:38I know he hasn't won a ring, but I don't know any other coaches who can do 12-5 and
17:44win road playoff games
17:45with the majority of your core players being hurt.
17:49And now you enter Brock Purdy into the mix of this conversation.
17:55Because he has people talking MVP after four weeks.
17:59To me, he is the one right now who has played damn near flawless football for a four-week stretch.
18:09Nothing is flawless that doesn't exist, but damn near.
18:12He threw a pick in Australia, and from that moment forward, I don't know what to say.
18:19He's barely made any mistakes from that moment going forward.
18:22Yeah, I mean, mistakes.
18:24Like, he's made mistakes to the extent that there have been plays that were available that he hasn't made.
18:30Yeah, you miss a throw here and there.
18:31I'm looking at the—I did the full 30-throw log, and I've got very few that are rated below a
18:40C.
18:40C. There's the one where Evans is open in the end zone, and Brock's rolling right, and he throws it,
18:46and they weren't really on the same page.
18:47And you mentioned the one to Cowing before, where it was third down, and Denver rushed three.
18:52They had eight in coverage, and Cowing wasn't where Brock thought he would be, and vice versa.
18:56And so that was not a perfect execution, but you go through, especially in that second half,
19:02where they started to open things up.
19:04The run game was starting to click in, and honestly, the screen pass to Kittle, we could all say,
19:09oh, that was all Shanahan, but Brock Purdy has to see it and be able to get it over the
19:14defensive end,
19:15who at the last second realized, uh-oh, we're blitzing.
19:18They're running the screen.
19:20I better get back, and he's able to put that right in the right spot, and you get credit for
19:24that.
19:24Just in general, I just think it's, I'm not going to say that was Brock Purdy's best moment this year.
19:29I just don't really understand when a team makes a great play, I don't hear,
19:34there's no other quarterback in the league that gets sort of points taken away
19:39when, you know, there's a hook and ladder and Debo runs for 80, or there's a screen pass that works.
19:44I just don't, I don't understand that.
19:46Like, they all throw it.
19:48Someone's asking about Yak and where everything ranks in the league.
19:52I give you one guess.
19:53You want to, which team leads the league in yards after the catch this year?
19:59Yards after catch.
20:00Yards after the catch.
20:02Which quarterback?
20:03Probably the Niners, and they got 80 on that hook and lateral.
20:07And 56 from George Kittle, but no, it's not the Niners.
20:10They're not even top five.
20:11Oh, wow.
20:12They're up there.
20:13They're six.
20:14Seattle's seven.
20:15This is, I mean, this is a stat that you want.
20:18I want receivers and people who make people miss and take off and run down the field,
20:22but no, who do you think is number one?
20:25Probably Buffalo.
20:27It is not Buffalo.
20:29I don't know.
20:30It is Patrick Mahomes.
20:31Yes.
20:32It is the Kansas City Chiefs.
20:33Last four years, he does not throw the ball down the field.
20:35Does not.
20:38Yeah.
20:39But we don't want to do that.
20:41We don't want to do that.
20:42We don't want to do that.
20:42We don't want to do that.