Former 49ers defender explains how Brock Purdy's worst game put him in position to receive megadeal

Save for the Super Bowl 58 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, there was probably no game from his 2023 season more painful for Brock Purdy than the San Francisco 49ers' Christmas Day defeat to the Baltimore Ravens.

Purdy threw four interceptions in that loss before eventually being removed from the game in the fourth quarter.

It marked the worst game of Purdy's still fledgling career, but it was also a game that apparently inspired an even greater degree of confidence in the quarterback in the eyes of head coach Kyle Shanahan.

Former 49ers defensive back Logan Ryan, who played five regular-season games and the entirety of their run to Super Bowl after signing in December last year, recently appeared on Keyshawn Johnson's 'All Facts No Brakes' podcast and predicted that Purdy will receive a contract that will make him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL. 

Niners owner Jed York had previously stated he is prepared for Purdy to ask for a record-setting contract next offseason when he becomes eligible for an extension.

Explaining why the Niners are likely to give him such a deal, Ryan pointed to head coach Kyle Shanahan's response to Purdy's performance against Baltimore.

"He's here to stay. I think they're going to give him a bag, too," Ryan said. "Nah, he's going to be like one of the highest paid. People will be shocked. Like, what? You're going to be talking about that forever. But, nah, he's here to stay.

"Shanahan loves him. Like, I got there a week or so before we played Baltimore on Christmas. Remember that game? And he threw four picks and a lot of those picks were tipped balls...so it's just a bad day, you know, a bad day at work. He didn't play great, but like he had three picks or whatever in the first half or third quarter. He's in the fourth quarter, still stepping in, still slinging it, like, still trying to throw the ball, trying to win the game.

"And Shanahan said, I remember in a meeting, he's like, 'I've coached a lot of quarterbacks. When quarterbacks have three or four interceptions, they're trying to check it down, protect, they protect, you know, get out of there, get out of dodge. Not trying to take no more hits.' He still stayed like kind of in his progression, but kind of had this gunfire about him. This dog about him."

That gunslinger mentality came to the fore in the postseason, when Purdy twice engineered big 49er comebacks to send San Francisco to the Super Bowl.

"He always would ask me questions about [Tom] Brady and stuff like that," Ryan added. "And in the playoffs, I think you saw, like, the 49ers were a team that's used to playing ahead. In the playoffs, we got behind a bunch and Purdy was coming in the second half going to get it, making plays happen with his feet, with his arm. 

"He's got this dog ability about him on top of the processing. I think he processed like a Kirk Cousins. But he also has this dog in him, though, that I don't think people fully see, but he does it to win games over there."

Purdy has won 17 regular-season games since he was promoted to the starting lineup because of an injury to Jimmy Garoppolo in 2022. Yet it is often said a coach learns the most about his players during defeats. Shanahan took a huge positive from a chastening primetime game against the Ravens, and the level of compensation Purdy receives next offseason will hinge largely on how he responds to the adversity of a Super Bowl defeat.