Purdy didn't surprise anybody who was actually watching.

He dropped bread crumbs for four years at Iowa State before the 49ers took him with the final draft pick in 2022.

Brock Purdy at Iowa State

They say Brock Purdy got here by hopping a boxcar, or by hiding in the cargo bin. In an era when quarterbacks are more instrumental than ever, Purdy is somehow the passenger, the guy whom Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel allow into the San Francisco huddle as long as he behaves.

This is not only contemptuous but counterfactual. The only time Purdy has ever been sold short as a quarterback is on Draft Day 2022 or, to be more precise, the third Draft Day of 2022, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, just a few stumbles from Allegiant Stadium, where Purdy will lead San Francisco into the Super Bowl against Kansas City, and will do so from the front.

As vacuum cleaners took over the floor in that seventh round of the draft, and the last-call lights began to flash, the final names came down: Nazeeh Johnson, safety, Marshall, to the Chiefs; Zander Horvath, fullback, Purdue, to the Chargers; A.J. Arcuri, tackle, Michigan State, to the Rams. Finally, there went Purdy, No. 262, Iowa State quarterback, to a 49ers’ team that already had Jimmy Garoppolo and Trey Lance. The only vote in their room that counted was that of coach Kyle Shanahan, and he was not speculating. He had paid attention to what Purdy was at the time, and beforehand.

Had San Francisco not drafted Purdy he would have signed a free agent contract with someone, possibly a bad team, and would likely become a No. 2 quarterback somewhere, which often is the most popular job in town. But quarterbacks do get hurt, as Kyle Kempt did at Iowa State in 2018. Zeb Noland took over for a whale, and was still the starter when the Cyclones were 1-3 and headed to Oklahoma State on Oct. 6, but coach Matt Campbell promised Purdy that he could handle the second series. Purdy, a true freshman, did so and threw a 21-yard touchdown pass. That meant he was allowed to handle the third series, too.

When the day ended, Iowa State had jolted the Cowboys, 48-42, and Purdy had thrown three other touchdowns and run 29 yards for another score.

More tellingly, Purdy led four scoring drives that answered Oklahoma State scores, and kept Iowa State ahead by more than one score. OSU coach Mike Gundy, a distinguished QB himself, said he thought he saw a future NFL guy that day.

The next week, ninth-ranked West Virginia came to Iowa State and left with a 30-14 loss, as Purdy threw three more touchdowns and was 18 for 25. No one else would start at the position at Iowa State until 2022. The Cyclones were 29-17 when Purdy started, beat every Big 12 team at least once, and played in four consecutive bowl games, winning the Fiesta Bowl over Oregon. Purdy threw 81 touchdowns with 33 interceptions, and ran for 1,177 yards and scored 19 more.

The NFL guys always talk about wanting to see what a guy does on tape. Purdy was on more tape than The Pillow Guy. He wasn’t great at the combine, mainly because the combine doesn’t ask quarterbacks to drive 70 yards in 90 seconds with only one time out. The same scouts who harshly graded Tom Brady were just as unkind to Purdy. The Ourlads scout service ranked Purdy the ninth best quarterback in the draft, just behind Notre Dame’s Jack Coan. Its first quarterback was Malik Willis of Liberty, who became a first-round pick of the Titans and is 0-for-1 in auditions. Kenny Pickett of Pitt was the first quarterback taken, in what was unanimously considered a fallow year at the position.

But the Brady comparisons don’t hold water. At Michigan, Brady was always scrapping for playing time, often with Drew Henson, whom Sports Illustrated once anointed as the top young athlete in America. Even in Brady’s senior year he had to split time in the first half with Henson, competing to see who would play the second half. Brady started 25 games at Michigan and his TD-interception ratio was 30-17. He was far more of a risk, far less of a known quantity, than Purdy.

It’s true that Purdy had to fight his way into the hearts of college recruiters when he was at Perry High in Gilbert, Az., but he had an offer from Nick Saban’s Alabama in his pocket when Campbell and several other coaches flew into town for one more hard sell.

It took Shanahan one entire week of training camp to tell 49ers executives that Purdy would eventually run the 49ers, and maybe sooner than later. Players were saying the same things to each other, even though Purdy on paper was battling Nate Sudfield for the third QB job. The opportunity came when Garoppolo injured a foot against Miami, and Purdy threw two TD passes in a win. His first start was against Brady’s Buccaneers and the 49ers won again, 35-7, but Purdy came out of that one with an oblique injury, and they had three days’ rest before their game at Seattle. Would he play? Yes, and he won, 23-13, and wrapped up the NFC West in doing so. Purdy would win his first seven starts before he tore an elbow ligament in the NFC Championship at Philadelphia.

If you’ll recall, it was unclear that Purdy would be ready for the starting bell in 2023. Instead, he started the opener at Pittsburgh and became the first quarterback in NFL history to win his first seven starts and throw two touchdown passes, or more, in each one. Purdy has now thrown 44 touhdowns for the Niners and 15 interceptions, with a completion percentage of 68.7.

But the playoffs have revealed the quarterback underneath the numbers. The 49ers don’t need to come from behind very often, but they trailed Green Bay 21-17 in the fourth quarter of the Division Playoff, and Purdy supervised a 69-yard touchdown drive that ended with McCaffrey’s game-winning score with 1:11 left. Purdy was 6 for 7 in that drive, and George Kittle dropped the only incompletion.

In the NFC Championship, Detroit ambushed the 49ers and led 24-7 at half. But when Arik Armstead recovered a fumble, San Francisco had a chance to tie. Purdy traversed the 24 yards in four plays, including a 21-yard scramble, with not a single stopwatch in the joint. After the Niners led, 27-24, Purdy was the wagonmaster of a 70-yard drive and, again, big-footed his way to 21 yards, this time on third and four. In the second half of that 34-31 win, San Francisco had six possessions and came up with three touchdowns, two field goals and a victory formation.

Along the way Purdy has been tabbed a “game manager,” one of those catchphrases that people use when they want to sound erudite on pro football. It means nothing. Patrick Mahomes manages games, as did Joe Namath and Sonny Jurgensen and Otto Graham. But the implication is that Purdy and other “game managers” are creations of the system they’re in, that they can’t go off-script if the situation dictates, that their prime talent is the avoidance of mistakes. Renowned football analyst Cam Newton called Purdy the 10th best player on the 49ers. That may be a popular opinion in some NFL locker rooms but it will dissipate when Purdy winds up beating all those teams, as he’s in process of doing.

Purdy manages games like this: He leads all NFL quarterbacks who have played more than four games in average yards per attempt, at 9.6. In fact, he leads that category by 1.3 yards. He has the league’s best passer rating and ranks third in touchdowns (31, behind Dak Prescott and Jordan Love).

“If you’re telling me this is based on things other than how he plays then I’m never going to understand,” said Richard Sherman, the former All-Pro cornerback who is now an Amazon Prime commenter. “We’re sitting here saying a Pro Bowl quarterback, a legit pick, is the worst quarterback left in the playoffs. I guarantee you Kyle Shanahan, if he had a pick there’s probably no one guy he would take, outside of Patrick Mahomes, over Brock Purdy. And I would bet quite a bit of money.”
Purdy’s dad Shawn, a former minor league baseball player and now a hot tub salesman near Phoenix, says Purdy’s experience as a flag football quarterback helped speed up his brain. If you didn’t do something within seven seconds in that league, they ruled the ball dead.

Kansas City’s marauding defense won’t be reaching for flags if they get near Purdy on Sunday, but the fundamentals don’t change. See the field, get rid of the ball. Unlike the words that surround him, Purdy is economical. But anybody who is shocked by any of this should heed Yogi Berra, a 5-foot-8 catcher who won three MVPs: You can observe a lot by watching.