It’s going to be a very interesting offseason for the San Francisco 49ers after their championship hopes went hurtling into the dark matter of a quarterback depth chart many light years removed from anything coach Kyle Shanahan anticipated.
You know it’s time to consider all options when your 31-7 NFC Championship Game meltdown includes halfback Christian McCaffrey trying on a helmet equipped with coach-to-quarterback receiver, because it appeared he might need to run the offense.
Tom Brady, anyone? Don’t laugh, because the 49ers have options, resources and lots of time before any binding decisions must be made regarding the young quarterbacks already on their roster, including the promising Brock Purdy. They will mourn this crushing defeat, and then they must ask themselves a question. If what unfolded Sunday in Philadelphia does not spur the 49ers into action, what will it take?
“Everybody knows that (49ers coach) Kyle Shanahan will make moves,” an exec from another team said Sunday night, speaking on the condition of anonymity for competitive reasons. “He is involved in everything, all the time. He made the exploratory call to Green Bay on Aaron Rodgers (in 2021). He is a doer, not a talker.”
The Pick Six column leads this week with a Brady prediction and other thoughts on what San Francisco might do at a position that, despite Herculean efforts, has stopped the 49ers from fulfilling the championship destiny their head coach and roster merit. We’ll also consider how legacies are taking shape after the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs advanced to Super Bowl 57 at the expense of the 49ers and Cincinnati Bengals.
The full Pick Six menu:
• 49ers’ quarterback predictions
• Hall of Fame legacy for Lurie?
• Mahomes joins Brady, with twist
• AFC edge the Bengals will lose
• My ballot for Coach of the Year
• 2-minute drill: Broncos searching
1. Brock Purdy is a cheaper mid-tier quarterback than Jimmy Garoppolo was for the 49ers. Will Purdy and Trey Lance be enough for the 49ers to bet their championship hopes on in 2023? The team has options.
Brady can become a free agent this offseason. The 49ers are the team he grew up rooting for, led by a general manager in John Lynch who competed against Brady on the field. It’s going to be a natural consideration, with some expectation Brady might take a discount to finish his career with one more Super Bowl push. And it doesn’t have to come at the long-term expense of Purdy, either. To the contrary.
“I think they will trade Trey Lance to Tennessee and then they will end up with Brady and Brady will play one year for his home team, and they will have Brock Purdy as the backup,” an exec from another team predicted. “That is the chatter. They have the defense already, Brady wants to win one more, and this is right up the 49ers’ alley.”
The 49ers may or may not need to upgrade from Purdy to get over the top. What they really need are options more reliable than the ones that keep letting them down. Purdy needs to be part of that mix, but no team as talented as this one can bet it all on eight starts if there’s a chance to put the team over the top without compromising what the longer-term future might hold.
Trading Lance wouldn’t be necessary and would actually cost a little more under the 2023 cap while removing another option, but it could make sense if the value were right. The Titans’ new GM, Ran Carthon, spent the past six seasons with San Francisco.
“I don’t think Lance has enough value right now to trade him,” another exec said.
As things stand now, the 49ers are entering a world they have not inhabited since their first season with Shanahan as head coach (2017). It’s a world where roster management can become easier in the absence of an expensive quarterback.
“They’ll let Jimmy G walk, have Purdy compete with Lance, and the job will be Purdy’s to lose,” an agent who represents other quarterbacks predicted. “They’ll be open to a Lance trade, knowing that is a long shot. Purdy is so much cheaper than Jimmy, they can add players around Purdy now and maybe still develop Lance.”
That might seem like the safe way to go until McCaffrey is warming up his arm on the sideline with the season on the line.
Garoppolo’s contract counted $27.3 million against the 49ers’ salary cap on average from 2018 through the 2021 season.
The contracts for Purdy and Lance count about $10 million against the cap in 2023, with less than $1 million of that dedicated to Purdy. Garoppolo comes off the books and will presumably land elsewhere. Purdy isn’t eligible for a new contract until after the 2024 season. Lance’s fifth-year option decision must be made by May 2024, with implications for the 2025 season.
The 49ers have time. Do they have a quarterback good enough to take them all the way while their roster remains strong? Purdy will still be available one year from now if the 49ers do sign Brady or even trade for Rodgers, whose acquisition would be trickier and more expensive. If the 49ers do not move in that direction, Purdy should appeal to them more than mid-tier veterans carrying elevated price tags.
Eight games of Purdy isn’t a huge body of work, but the seventh-round pick from Iowa State performed well enough for former three-time NFL general manager Randy Mueller to say during one of our recent podcasts that San Francisco can feel good proceeding with Purdy, based on the film.
“It’ll be Purdy’s job to lose, and I don’t think there’s any looking back,” Mueller said.
Then came Sunday, which won’t change opinions on Purdy but could increase the urgency for reinforcing the position by any means necessary.
Listen to Mueller’s scouting report on Purdy below.
2. The Jeff Lurie-owned Eagles are one victory away from joining the Al Davis-owned Raiders in an exclusive club. Is Lurie headed for Canton?
Nick Sirianni coaching against the Chiefs’ Andy Reid in the Super Bowl provides an opportunity to assess the Eagles’ owner, who hired both men before either had been a head coach or even a primary play caller.
The Eagles during Lurie’s three decades as owner have reached the Super Bowl with three of the coaches he hired: Reid, Doug Pederson and now Sirianni. Reid ranks fifth on the all-time list for regular-season victories, three short of Tom Landry.
Lurie also hired Ray Rhodes, the 1995 Coach of the Year, and Chip Kelly, who twice went 10-6 before falling off.
Along the way, Lurie has promoted, demoted and reinstalled Howie Roseman as GM. The organization has lost its way a couple times, with no shortage of palace intrigue, but usually with Lurie pushing to raise the bar.
With a victory against the Chiefs, Lurie will join the late Al Davis as the only owners to win two Super Bowls in a six-year span with different head coaches and different quarterbacks. Davis’ Raiders did it in 1976 and 1980. Eddie DeBartolo Jr.’s 49ers did it during a seven-season window (1988, 1994). Davis and DeBartolo are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Lurie doesn’t get mentioned in that company, but that could change with another Lombardi Trophy in the lobby.
These Eagles would one-up those old Raiders and 49ers teams if they could win another Lombardi because only three of their starters — center Jason Kelce, tackle Lane Johnson and defensive lineman Fletcher Cox — would carry over from their 2017 Super Bowl victory. The 1976 and 1980 Raiders had seven carryover starters. The 1988 and 1994 49ers had five.
As the Eagles loaded up this past offseason, acquiring receiver A.J. Brown and paying him near the top of the market, a longtime exec with no ties to Lurie or the Eagles made an observation that has stuck with me. He suggested that most owners want to win championships, but their hunger subsides after accomplishing the goal, at which point money becomes a higher priority.
“The Eagles are a surprise to me because they just won a few years ago and here they are going crazy spending when they really don’t even know if they have a quarterback that can fully take advantage of the guy’s talent,” this exec said in April, before Jalen Hurts justified the Eagles’ faith with an outstanding season.
There should be no rush to judgment when it comes to Lurie and that bust in Canton. Kraft stands at the front of the line for owners. Lurie does check some of the boxes we discussed when evaluating Kraft’s credentials last month. With Philly back in a Super Bowl featuring two coaches Lurie hired, there is at least a discussion to be had.
3. Patrick Mahomes joined Tom Brady as the only quarterbacks with three Super Bowl appearances in their first six seasons. His Chiefs got there with much less help from their defense and special teams.
Say what you will about the 15-yard penalty for a late hit that turned Mahomes’ last-ditch scramble up the sideline into the winning field-goal try for the Chiefs in a 23-20 victory against the Bengals.
Mahomes gives it his all for the first down!
📺: #CINvsKC on CBS
📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/fM5ertlhHi pic.twitter.com/z78Phcfkyp— NFL (@NFL) January 30, 2023
As one defensive coach from an NFC team put it for comedic effect, “That is what the owners want, $40 million skill players flopping on the ground, drawing fouls from (part-time officials who double as) chemistry teachers, medical device salesmen and the like.”
Officiating jabs aside, Mahomes’ effort on this play and in passing for 326 yards a week after suffering a badly sprained ankle was exemplary. He elevated the Chiefs when it mattered, and now he will head to the Super Bowl with a team that ranked 29th during the regular season in combined expected points added (EPA) on defense and special teams, according to TruMedia.
The Chiefs ranked 18th (2019) and 16th (2020) on defense/special teams when reaching the Super Bowl previously with Mahomes. The No. 29 ranking this season is second-lowest for any Super Bowl team since 2000. Only Peyton Manning’s 2006 Colts ranking lower (32nd).
Kansas City beat the Bengals partly because punt returner Skyy Moore and kicker Harrison Butker made key contributions in the late going. Despite those boosts, Kansas City still finished this game with greater production on offense (2.8 EPA) than on defense (0.6) or special teams (-0.4).
In other words, Mahomes needed one healthy leg, average support on defense/special teams and, perhaps, a fortuitous late penalty to beat the defending AFC champion Bengals.
Mahomes will become the 13th quarterback to start at least three Super Bowls. The table below stacks the 13 by career Super Bowl starts. Brady and Mahomes are the only ones with three in their first six seasons, despite neither starting as rookies. The others all started at least one Super Bowl after their sixth seasons. Mahomes enters his seventh season in 2023. The Super Bowl did not exist during Fran Tarkenton’s first six seasons.
| QB | #SB Yr 1-6 | #SB YR 7+ | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
John Elway | |||
Joe Montana | |||
Peyton Manning | |||
Roger Staubach | |||
Terry Bradshaw | |||
Ben Roethlisberger | |||
Bob Griese | |||
Fran Tarkenton | |||
Kurt Warner | |||
Troy Aikman | |||
Patrick Mahomes |
4. The Bengals finished the past two seasons in the Super Bowl and in the AFC Championship Game. Can they win it all before losing their current competitive advantage on the Chiefs and Bills?
Asked recently about keeping pace with Cincinnati in the AFC, Bills GM Brandon Beane alluded to advantages Cincinnati enjoys in roster flexibility while Burrow remains on a cheaper rookie contract.
Burrow’s $9.0 million average per year (APY) ranks eighth among all Bengals salaries. That compares to the APYs for Chiefs role player Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Buffalo’s Mitch Morse. The Bengals’ highest-paid player, pass-rusher Trey Hendrickson, checks in with a $15 million APY. That is about one-third as much as the APYs for Mahomes ($45 million) and Allen ($43 million).
The chart above reflects these differences. The black line tracking the Bengals’ 20 highest APYs is relatively flat, with a slow descent. Cincinnati’s seven highest-paid players carry salaries lower than the seven highest-paid players for the Chiefs or Bills. The Chiefs’ top APYs plummet in value outside the nine highest spots. Both the Bengals and Bills are paying more than the Chiefs are paying for players slotted ninth through 20th in APY.
Kansas City has gone young in many of these spots, while paying premiums for Mahomes, Chris Jones, Orlando Brown, Joe Thuney, Frank Clark and Travis Kelce.
The Bengals’ margin for error is going to shrink once Burrow and others, including Ja’Marr Chase, start earning nearer market value for veterans. But there is still time for Cincinnati. Burrow is not eligible for a new deal until after this season. Once he signs one, the Bengals could push the larger cap hits out of the first couple seasons, extending their window of flexibility.
5. Brian Daboll won Coach of the Year in Pro Football Writers of America balloting. Daboll, Pederson and Shanahan are finalists in the Associated Press version of the award. Here’s how I voted before the playoffs.
The best, most established coaches wind up competing against their own exalted standards in coach-of-the-year balloting.
Bill Belichick averaged 14.7 victories per season in the three seasons he won the award. All the other winners since 2000 averaged 11.8 victories when they won it, frequently by outperforming low expectations.
Reid is one of the great coaches, having strung together 10 successive winning seasons in Kansas City, where the Chiefs had bottomed out at 2-14 the year before his arrival. But he has won the award just once, in 2002. We might be better off voting on a “Coach of the Past Five Years Award” if the goal is to recognize something other than outperforming expectations.
In the meantime, doing more with less is how we determine Coach of the Year honors.
My top three this season were:
• Daboll, for leading the Giants to their first winning record since 2016 and their first playoff victory since they beat New England in the Super Bowl following the 2011 season. Unlike the Jacksonville Jaguars, who loaded up in free agency to jump-start their team, the Giants worked around severe roster constraints, even subtracting talent (Kadarius Toney, for instance) with the long-term future in mind.
• Pete Carroll, for leading the Seattle Seahawks to the playoffs after trading Russell Wilson and rolling with Geno Smith at quarterback. His team played fast and with energy from the start of the season.
• Shanahan, for averaging 33.6 offensive points per game with third-team quarterback Brock Purdy in the lineup for the final five games of the regular season. The 49ers have excellent talent on both sides of the ball, but that type of production with a seventh-round rookie quarterback is remarkable.
I gave these three a slight edge over some other worthy candidates, starting with Philadelphia’s Sirianni. His Eagles did enter the season with what some considered the NFL’s strongest roster, whereas the three on my ballot overcame greater challenges. It’s a tougher case to make with Sirianni on the verge of the Super Bowl in his second season.
6. Two-minute drill: The Denver Broncos under late former owner Pat Bowlen were a model franchise. Does their new owner’s handling of the current coaching search reflect growing pains?
When Broncos owner Greg Penner suggested after the season that the team’s next coach might report directly to him, the team was signaling to big-name candidates that Denver could be a welcome landing spot for them.
Sean Payton, Dan Quinn and Jim Harbaugh were the known big-name possibilities. All three appear beyond the Broncos’ reach, unless Denver pulls some sort of Hail Mary, which is always possible until a candidate is hired, especially for an owner with Penner’s deep pockets.
Word of Penner’s recent trip to Ann Arbor for a second meeting with Harbaugh was circulating through league circles Wednesday, catching other candidates off-guard, according to league sources. If Penner was secretly doubling back to meet with Harbaugh before getting back to other candidates, under the impression his meeting with Harbaugh might remain private, this could be a case of an owner new to the league not fully understanding the consequences of operating in that manner.
If money talks in the end, well, there is always that. …
• The two offensive scrimmage plays producing the largest EPA gains Sunday came on aggressive fourth-down go-for-its.
The Eagles completed a pass with 29 air yards on fourth-and-3 from the San Francisco 35 in the first quarter of a scoreless game. The low-odds deep ball sustained a touchdown drive. Replays showed DeVonta Smith failing to complete the catch, but not in time for the 49ers to challenge. This play produced 5.6 EPA.
The Bengals’ fourth-and-6 completion from Burrow to Chase on the first play of the fourth quarter was the No. 2 EPA gainer on offense Sunday (4.8). The pass, delivered 32 yards past the line of scrimmage, gained 35 yards and set up the tying touchdown.
TruMedia’s model showed a historical go-for-it expectation of about 45 percent for Philly’s play and seven percent for Cincy’s play. The model uses data since 2000, however, so the projections fall on the low side for games played in the current era, when teams are more apt to go for it. …
• Mahomes finally threw a second-half touchdown pass against the Lou Anarumo-coordinated Bengals defense. His numbers after halftime in four career games against Anarumo, counting playoffs: 41-of-68 passing (60 percent) for 361 yards (6.1 per attempt) with one touchdown, two interceptions and a 70.4 passer rating. Even Sunday, not so great: 16-of-24 passing for 150 yards (6.7 per attempt). But Mahomes was as good as he needed to be in a hard-fought game, and now he gets two weeks to recuperate. …
Tough weekend for the Mayor of Cincinnati.
Before:
A WHO DEY proclamation from the Mayor: @Bengals pic.twitter.com/W1tCqupdTw
— Aftab Pureval (@AftabPureval) January 27, 2023
After:
Travis Kelce had quite the message for the Cincinnati Mayor 💀
🎥: @NFLonCBS pic.twitter.com/rQtEvnJq7h
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) January 30, 2023
(Top illustration: Sean Reilly / The Athletic; photo: Kevin Sabitus / Getty Images)
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