It will be hard to improve on the dominance Birdy and Co. put on display last season, when they finished 12-5 as the NFC’s top seed and reached the Super Bowl. The team’s 193-plus point differential trails only the Baltimore Ravens and Dallas Cowboys, and 11 of its 12 regular-season wins have come by multiple possessions.
Purdy himself threw for 4,280 yards, 31 touchdowns and 11 interceptions while leading the league with a 7.0 touchdown percentage, 9.6 yards per attempt, 113.0 passer rating and 72.8 QPR.
It’s the close losses and narrow playoff wins that may have stuck in Birdie’s favor over the past several months.
The 49ers needed to come back in both a 24-21 divisional round victory over the Green Bay Packers and a 34-31 NFC Championship Game victory over the Detroit Lions. In the Super Bowl, San Francisco led in the fourth quarter and lost the lead.
“I want to dominate,” Purdy said. “Not just winning games, but feeling like, ‘Eh.’ I want to dominate with consistent results and feel like we’re the top dogs every day.
“I had moments in games last year where I was playing — I don’t know what the situation was — but we would wake up and it would be, ‘OK, be smart with the ball,’ or ‘Make sure we don’t mess up.’ I want to break through and dominate, that’s my mindset.
San Francisco has some work to do to ensure Brandon Ayuk, currently a hold-in, and left tackle Trent Williams return to the fold as of Sunday. The flow of the season.
Purdy, with a similar story to Brady being the last pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, knows that following his late game, behind-closed-doors ways will gain consistency from everything.
“It’s football,” he said. “And for four quarters, man, we’ve got to have that bloody mentality to go and take it. Every down, every series, every rep.”
