49ers' Brock Purdy reflects on past NFC Championship heartbreak

San Francisco 49ers second-year quarterback Brock Purdy is looking to put the events of last January's NFC Championship Game in the past as he and his teammates prepare for this coming Sunday's conference title matchup versus the Detroit Lions. 

"Last year happened," Purdy told Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated following San Francisco's gritty 24-21 win over the Green Bay Packers this past Saturday. "It sucked. We all thought we had a team to go all the way and do it. We didn’t get an opportunity to. Now, we’re back. It’s been a quick year. We’re all excited for this opportunity. We weren’t trying to think too far in the future. We knew, Green Bay coming in, it was going to be a good game. To be able to pull through at the end like that was huge. Now for us to now focus on the NFC Championship." 

As Steve Gardner and Safid Deen noted for USA Today, Purdy went down with what was later learned to be a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow in the first quarter of the 2023 NFC title game versus the Philadelphia Eagles. The Niners never recovered from that setback and ultimately lost 31-7.

"We’re all drooling over this opportunity," Purdy added about San Francisco playing in a third consecutive conference championship contest. 

Purdy emerged this fall as a legitimate Most Valuable Player candidate who guided his club to the NFC's No. 1 playoff seed, but he nevertheless received criticisms as recently as last week claiming he's merely a "game manager" and not yet an elite player at the sport's most important position. While the 24-year-old produced a rather shaky performance against Green Bay over the weekend, Coral Smith of the league's website noted that Purdy connected on six-of-seven passes for 47 yards during what became a late game-winning drive. 

"Earlier this year, we played some really close games," Purdy told Breer about a 49ers team that posted a regular-season record of 12-5. "We’ve had opportunities to finish at the end, and we’ve fallen short. Tonight, really, in all aspects, we needed the defense to get a stop. They did."