49ers news: Is Brock Purdy holding the ball too long in the pocket?

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy had his best performance of the season this past week, but the effort came in a loss as the team dropped a 27-24 game to the Los Angeles Rams in Week 3.

Purdy, who has been a topic of debate for quite some time, tossed for 292 yards and three touchdowns in the loss, finding ways to create plays, both on-script and off-schedule, but dealt with some penalties and drops along the way.

It was a different tone than Week 2, where it felt that the 49ers quarterback was trying to do too much at times, looking downfield too often rather than hitting some of the underneath routes, which the signal-caller admitted last week.

However, there was one interesting difference between the two weeks: Purdy’s time to throw against the Rams was a whopping 3.39 seconds, the highest in the NFL in Week 3, while his time to throw against the Minnesota Vikings was 3.02 seconds.

Through three weeks, Purdy has the second-highest average time to throw in the NFL, trailing only Jalen Hurts, so it begs the question: is the 49ers quarterback holding the ball too long in the pocket?

Breaking down the last two weeks, as I noted, there is a pretty big difference when it comes to the time to throw for Purdy.

However, in Week 2, I felt that Purdy was holding the ball too long, which allowed some of the pressure to get past the offensive line, leading to some of the sacks that the 49ers had.

But, in Week 3, that didn’t seem to be the case, but rather more of a reflection of how the Rams defended the 49ers.

Los Angeles had just three rushers on a number of plays, which created more time in the pocket for Purdy, and I thought the offensive line also did their job in protection, giving the 49ers quarterback ample opportunity to hit his receivers.

Additionally, when there was a protection breakdown, primarily on the right side, Purdy did a good job of evading pressure and finding open space, either to take off himself or extend plays to help move the chains.

Purdy ultimately ended the game with 10 rushes for 41 yards, which was his most carries in a game over his entire career, with all coming from scrambles. Head coach Kyle Shanahan attributed that more to the Rams dropping a lot of players into coverage, rather than a change in game plan for San Francisco.

“I think you’ve got a lot of three-man rushes,” Shanahan said. “When you have a three-man rush, usually that’s the number one thing. You stay in the pocket and try to buy time and once they eventually get you out of the pocket, you have eight guys looking at you and you break to get someone to come up to open people up. If they stay in coverage, then you take what you can get.”

“A couple times, they jumped the cadence a couple times and he had to just get up in there and break out. But I think with the number being so high, I think it had to do with a few quarterback sneaks and a number of three-man rushes. Then the typical three times that it happens other plays.”

So, even though the time to throw was much higher in Week 3, it didn’t feel that Purdy was holding on to the ball too long. There were times when it felt like the quarterback actually escaped some clean pockets too early, but Purdy managed to make the most of those situations usually, so there were positive plays made.

Overall, it’s been an intriguing start to the year for Purdy, but I don’t think the holding the ball too long argument has been an issue throughout the weeks, with there being clear context in Week 3.

He’ll face another challenge in Week 4 with the New England Patriots defense as the 49ers look to get back on track after dropping two in a row.