Brock Purdy has been playing extremely well this season. His performance has played a key role in the San Francisco 49ers' 5-0 start.
Purdy seems to be playing sharper and more comfortably than ever before. Part of that is the help he has, as well as the work he put in the offseason. However, there’s another factor that helped him out.
Defensive coordinator Raheem Morris is someone whom Purdy has credited with his improvement this year. Now, you may wonder how a defensive coach is helping an offensive player?
Morris isn’t working one-on-one with Purdy like quarterbacks coach Mick Lombardi is, or even Klint Kubiak and Kyle Shanahan. But what he did do was give him quality reps in training camp that forced him to elevate his game.
“A lot more man-match technique and tighter windows. It felt like everything for me had to be on time and it had to be aggressive,” Purdy said. “I don't know if there was as many layered kind of throws, just because of how they run things. Everything for me, it seemed like it was just always tight and the vision zones of dropping back and dropping it in the bucket over hook defenders and stuff like that.
“You get that every once in a while, but for the most part, man, he made me have to play aggressive. And I appreciated that, actually. I think that's translated into the season for me to throw with that, I know we've talked about this, but that aggressive mindset and everything. So, it's a big credit to Raheem.”
If it wasn’t clear before, it's definitely clear now that Morris is an upgrade over Robert Saleh. Not only has he gotten the 49ers’ secondary to raise their game — he’s gotten Purdy to as well.
It’s like the cliché saying, “iron sharpens iron.” That’s exactly what training camp was for Purdy, going up against the 49ers’ new defense under Morris. This is why he looks so sharp.
Morris’ defense forced Purdy to play at a high level. And as he said, it translated to the regular season. If you look back at reports during training camp, it was rare for Purdy to turn the ball over.
He was also cited as taking some nice shots and playing within himself. That’s exactly what he’s been doing through five games this season. Adding Mike Evans has helped Purdy out a ton.
But Morris is the one who’s had the greater impact on him.
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