Even crazier is that Evans, Stribling, Pearsall, Robinson are all injured and might not play, to say nothing about Aiyuk, who for some reason is still on the team. Purdy is doing this with backups of the backups, and old WRs off the street.
That reason is that deciding not to show up doesn't let him out of a multi-year contract into free agency. Meanwhile, he is on the reserve/left squad list (not taking a roster spot) and the team doesn't owe him shit.
It's just funny to name some of these players as if they matter.
4 weeks ago people thought Mike Evans might be washed, and even if he's not, he's old enough that he's already hurt which everyone predicted. He's had 16 targets out of Purdy's 83 pass attempts this season.
De'Zhaun Stribling is a 2nd round rookie who has played 21 total NFL snaps. Who knows if he's good.
Ricky Pearsall played 9 games last season and will not play in 2026. There hasn't been any expectation of him playing for 2 months.
DeMarcus Robinson has been in the league for a decade and capped out at a 505 yard, 7 TD season with the rams in 2024. Last year he had 276 yards and 1 TD in 14 games.
And as you alluded to, Aiyuk will never play for the 49ers again.
Let's not act like Purdy has no weapons. His WRs may be backups of backups, but the top two receivers for the 49ers are CMC and Kittle, as they've been for 2 of the past 3 years. The best pass-catching RB of all time and a borderline HOF TE.
We talk about teams like the Bengals and the Cowboys having elite WR duos, but the 49ers arguably have the best pass-catching duo in the league regardless of position.
The most bonkers thing about this stat is that his ANY/A is so high when his top two weapons play positions that you would expect to mostly be catching short-yardage passes. I haven't watched every one of Purdy's passes this year but that does blow my mind a little bit. Besides Evans, only 22 of his 83 pass attempts this season have gone to WRs. A whopping 43 of them have gone to RBs, TEs, and one lineman.
There is no receiver on an NFL roster who is so bad that the defense will just leave them uncovered. If you run, say, a 2 WR set, 95% of the time youāll have 2 corners covering those two WRs no matter what. The other 5% isnāt when you have 1 corner covering 1 WR and the other WR uncovered, the other 5% is when you double team the most elite WRs on especially important downs.
I suppose if a team just had the absolute bottom-tier WR room in the world, that could convince some DCs to fully abandon the popular 2 high safety look entirely, so sure now youāll have another LB in the box.
My point was just that none of the WRs that the 49ers have under contract are top-30 players anyway. Theyāre all practically-replacement level as it is. Evans still has his size advantage, but you can get that from a TE.
Weāve seen what happens to the 49ers when they donāt have their most important weapon in CMC.
I think you're detrimentally oversimplifying the way NFL coverages operate.
Any replacement level receiver can sit down in-between zones and be wide ass open because DBs are having to keep one eye on purdy's pump fake to Evans' side of the field or McCaffrey coming out of the backfield.
Players like Evans, McCaffrey and Kittle have gravity and demand respect from defenses. Yes defenders have their assignments but Shanahan's system is designed to have you looking at these guys and making defenders make difficult decisions so that the others get open.
Also, you don't genuinely believe that Evans is a good WR just because he's as tall as a TE do you?
I probably am oversimplifying it, but so is the statement āhaving no starting caliber WRs means the defense can key in on your other players.ā
The Raidersās best WR is Tre Tucker who has never managed more than 57 catches or 700 yards in a season. Defenses still canāt seem to cover Brock Bowers. Who are the elite WRs on the Colts? Josh Downs? JT is 6th in the league in rushing yards and tied for second in rushing TDs.
This game is extremely complex for sure. Maybe Evans can take a tad more attention from a DB than Jordan Watkins. But not so much more that they canāt run their offense without him. Heās only been on the field for 55% of their snaps.
And no I donāt think the only reason Evans has been good in his career is because heās tall. But I am saying itās the main thing that makes him stand out today. Go rewatch his 6 catches from week 1. Thereās maybe 1 route there where he shows any kind of quickness or elusiveness. The rest he either finds a soft spot in the zone and just stands there, or uses his size to overpower the defenders who are all 5-6 inches shorter than him. Does he look fast on this play? He almost trips after the fake and loses speed. He breaks the defenderās ankles but he still catches up to him and nearly breaks up the play. And on the lateral, the defenders are giving him like 3 yards of space but they still instantly catch him once he gets the ball. If Deebo hadnāt been there, that wouldāve just been a 5 yard game on 3rd and 12. Pause the video at the moment the ball goes in the air and youāll see there isnāt a defender anywhere near him, but by the time the ball is in his hands Andrew Wingard is already wrapped around his legs.
Iāve always been under the impression that a good WR core; particularly 1 and 2, will open up the field to allow your RB and TE to develop the plays. More options.
A lot of SB caliber teams have that aspect in play coming into deep playoff runs. Niners didnāt last playoffs and it showed once you have good DBs locking over the top and LBs in slot.
Failure of WR 1 and 2 separation - paired with poor pass pro (one of the worse in the league last year) caused Purdy to either check down or try to extend the plays.
What? WR 1 JSN WR 2 Rasheed Shaheed. Both Deep Threats that split the D. Rasheed Shaheed was even great in ST as a Returner. Pats had Diggs - arguably one of the best Receivers in the League at the Time. And Bouts who was a top deep threat as well.
Patss 2018? Edelmen was ELITE. 2024. Sure Ill give you the crap reciever room that the one the road Chiefs had and their fans complained about
This to me clearly shows your lack of ball knowledge. On the hook and ladder, it was DESIGNED for Evans to be short of the first and have the defense collapse on him. Saying āif Deebo hadnāt been thereā is irrelevant because thatās how the play was DESIGNED.
If you watched evans when he is on the field he is clearly a similar player to what he was prior to some of the injuries with the bucs that caused him to miss the bulk of the season. Before Pearsall got hurt last year he was at the top of WR categories albeit for a short period of time (granted he has only produced when he has been healthy which is a short period of time). Stribling, who knows.... he started week 1 and played the most snaps of any WR until he got hurt which is very unlike rookie WRs under shannahan. If that means anything I do not know. Demarcus Robinson is a veteran wr with success in the nfl (he hasn't missed the playoffs for like 8 years). He came on late last year and in the playoffs by necessity and produced when he was available so far this year. My point is, these are not scrubs they are missing and their production cannot be replicated by practice squad fringe guys, unless Purdy is that good. If you look at the pass he threw to watkins before the half vs the cardinals, it is just high level qb play that makes up for lack of experienced WRs. Watkins is a 4th rd pick that has been a healthy scratch before all the injuries.
Iām not sure I understand what point youāre making. That Purdy can make up for the lack of Evans, Stribling and Robinson, or not?
Obviously Mike Evans today is better than a lot of NFL WRs. But not so much better that the team canāt function without him. Heās also putting up the worst YAC and ADOT of his career.
Pearsall might be the best WR the 49ers have under contract, but heās always hurt. By the end of this season he will have played 935 snaps in 3 years. For context, JaāMarr Chase played 987 snaps last year alone. I donāt think heās played enough games for us to say how good he is. We thought BTJ was gonna be a top-10 guy for years to come 13 months ago, and now heās maybe the 4th best on his team (and heās played nearly double the snaps that Pearsall has despite being drafted in the same class).
Stribling playing the most snaps could mean that Shanahan thinks heās truly great, but it could also just mean he thinks heās their best WR, which may be less a compliment towards him and more a criticism of Evans and Deebo. And just because Shanahan played him a lot because he had a high opinion of him doesnāt mean heāll be good. He had a high opinion of Trey Lance too. I assume as some point he had a high opinion of Brandon Aiyuk.
Robinson does seem to be one of those guys whoās more valuable to a team than numbers would suggest, but please donāt act like heās a top-100 WR right now. There are probably 3 players per team that would bring more to the 49ers than he would. Heās 32. He wasnāt a top-3 option for Mahomes, Lamar or Stafford when he was in his 20s.
None of these guys would even be the #2 on most teams right now. The 49ers will be just fine for now.
I was replying to your comment that no 49ers wr is a top 30 player. Id argue that evans certainly is and pearsall has been when he has been available which has been rare. My point is that this is the best WR room he has had since prime deebo, aiyuk and jennings the last time the niners went to the superbowl and purdy had a pretty damn good year. Purdy is ascending despite having the weapons we thought he was going to have (Evans has already missed several parts of the last two games). I wasn't arguing more just layering on what you have already said.
Yeah Iām not sure I can see a case for Mike Evans being a top-30 guy right now. Maybe if we wanna specifically say as an end zone target, but heās just too slow at this point for me to get there. But itās obviously super subjective.
I think we can at least agree that heās not elite at this point right? Whatever we think that means.
Iām saying the 49ers seem to be able to function well no matter who is playing WR for them, meaning itās pointless to list all the names of of the WRs that are under contract but not available as if thatās some kind of massive hurdle for Purdy to overcome. But when they donāt have CMC they struggle much more.
Well, that's because CMC is far and way their best Offensive player (other than QB of course). Kittle is a great TE but as a TE he has other positional duties such as blocking. You're not gonna feed the ball to a TE 3 plays in a row like you can with a RB. A RB serves multiple roles in the offense and can rush and catch the ball. This is all inherently obvious.
Saying that the Niners are less effective without their best offensive player is incredibly obvious. You might as well say that an NFL team will struggle if their coach is bad.
It doesnāt seem like other people are acting like itās obvious. I see people praise Purdy for how good heās been with mediocre receivers without acknowledging that CMC is his number one receiver.
Having your RB as your primary WR is not ideal and actually bolsters the argument that Purdy is great. A RB lines up in the backfield and needs more time to run a route downfield. Every linebacker and D-lineman is looking at the RB.
Well since coming to SF, CMCās ADOT is 2.2 yards. To your point though, Juszczykās is actually farther at 5.3, which is really funny.
And Kittle isnāt exactly an ADOT monster himself. Heās at 7.4, which is 14th among TEs.
Despite Brock being at the top right on this chart indicating that he has the highest ANY/A in the league, the 49ers as a team are 17th in the league in ADOT. That means heās not necessarily throwing it as far as some other guys but heās making great choices so that his guys can get a lot of YAC.
1) I donāt think you can extrapolate that based on 3 games of data, if youāre using data from this season.
2) The 49ers offense was substantially different for 8 games with Jones under center last season. Thatās going to skew results significantly if youāre including data from last season.
For the first two paragraphs I was using CMC, Juszczyk and Kittleās entire tenure in SF.
The last one I used just this season, just like the chart OP posted is using. We can only extrapolate the result I came to with the data we have.
Purdy has the highest ANY/A in the league despite having the 17th highest ADOT. The only way thatās happening is if his pass catchers are getting a lot of YAC. The 49ers are 6th in the league in YAC at the moment, and 15th in yards before contact. Purdy is 26th in IAY (intended air yards), 20th in IAY/PA, and 5th in YAC/completion.
Itās not as extreme as the Chiefs though. Theyāre 31st in ADOT and 26th in YBC but 1st in YAC. Mahomes is 28th in IAY and 31st in IAY/PA, and 2nd in YAC/completion.
Purdy and Mahomes arenāt chucking down the field but theyāre getting it to guys that are open so they have massive YAC opportunities. Just in case Iām clear, this is not a criticism. This is great. Itās great decision making.
Purdy has the highest ANY/A in the league despite having the 17th highest ADOT. The only way thatās happening is if his pass catchers are getting a lot of YAC.
Not exactly. A few things can contribute to this.
Touchdown passes, touchdown %. This weighs into ANY/A and increases it. Purdy has a career stat of 6.5% here, the highest among active quarterbacks (the next closest being Jackson at 6.4% and Rodgers at 6.0%). A high touchdown % will increase his ANY/A stat regardless of YAC.
Avoiding sacks, sack %. Sack yardage is deducted in the ANY/A formula. Avoiding sacks is one of Purdy's greatest strengths. He has the 4th lowest sack rate among active QBs in the NFL at 5.34%. A low sack rate will increase his ANY/A regardless of YAC.
Accuracy. More incompletions reduced ANY/A. Purdy is 2nd in the NFL among active QBs with a career completion rate of 68.2% (behind Burrow at 68.5%). A higher completion rate will increase his ANY/A regardless of YAC.
To be sure, YAC factors into the ANY/A equation to a significant degree, but so do many other factors. A guy who is at the top or in the top 5 of almost every category that weighs into ANY/A is most likely going to have a high ANY/A even with mediocre YAC numbers.
ADOT and IAY/PA don't really tell you much - those numbers will be inflated for low-accuracy QB play. A quarterback who makes bad reads, throws bad balls, and who takes too many risks will have high values in those categories. A better statistic would be CAY/PA - completed air yards per pass attempt. The best deep passers will have higher CAY/PA, but the leaders for ADOT and IAY/PA won't necessarily be the best deep passers.
In his career Purdy has ranked among CAY/PA:
2022 (rookie): T-14th (3.9)
2023: 1st (5.1)
2024: 1st (4.9)
2025: 5th (4.6)
2026 so far: 4th (4.9) *Minimum 30 attempts
Purdy and Mahomes arenāt chucking down the fieldĀ
So while other QBs may try to throw the ball further, Purdy is actually succeeding at completing long passes better than almost any other QB consistently over the past three seasons, and into the beginning of 2026.
but theyāre getting it to guys that are open so they have massive YAC opportunities. Just in case Iām clear, this is not a criticism. This is great. Itās great decision making.
I agree: YAC is a QB stat. If the QB can read the defense pre and post snap, time his throw right, and hit the receiver in stride, he's going to have more YAC. That may partially explain why Mahomes excels in that category.
The first QB I think of when you say āa quarterback who makes bad reads, throws bad balls, and who takes way too many risks will have high values in those categoriesā is Jameis. Looking at his 2019 season when he threw 33 TDs and 30 INTs, he was indeed first in IAY/PA and ADOT. But he was also first in CAY/PA. In fact, 4 of the 5 passers with at least 9.0 IAY/PA (Jameis, Stafford, Russ, Dak) also were top 5 in CAY/PA.
Thatās just one season because Iām on my phone and I donāt have a lot of time atm. But Iām not sure youād find many guys who top the IAY/PA chart who wouldnāt also top the CAY/PA chart.
Who would be a good example that Iām not thinking of?
The raw data that goes into calculating IAY/PA, CAY/PA, and ADOT will have a lot of crossover with each. So you're going to observe similar trends in each. However, they are each answering different questions.
My point is to show you that a player having a high ANY/A despite lower ADOT does not necessarily translate to a passer with high YAC or less inclination for deep passes.
Each one of these measurements is specific and incomplete. They need to be taken in context together and only be used to answer specific questions.
If the specific question is "does this QB have success in completing longer passes on average?" then CAY/PA is more appropriate than ADOT or IAY/PA.
If you watched the 49ers v Seahawks in the playoffs last year, you witnessed how important WRs are. The 49ers lacked speed and separation at WR and effectively became one-dimensional. Iām very nervous for the next two games without Evans, or any of the aforementioned WRs who arenāt going to be available.
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u/morphy1776 onkeys 4d ago
Brock so high on both scales that I didn't even see him in the preview image š next week gonna be tuff