Why 49ers QB Brock Purdy took so many deep shots against the Patriots

The San Francisco 49ers had a dominant 30-13 victory over the New England Patriots on Sunday, improving to 2-2 on the season and remaining undefeated at home.

This game had a much different tone than the 49ers’ Week 3 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, as San Francisco flourished on both sides of the ball for a strong all-around performance.

One change over the weekend seemed to be the number of deep shots that the 49ers called up, as Brock Purdy averaged 10.7 yards per attempt and a whopping 19.2 yards per completion on the day, en route to throwing for 288 yards in the win.

Purdy had five passes of over 20+ yards (one called back due to penalty), while connecting on deep balls to all three of his top receivers in a successful day in the air for the 49ers. Overall, he had an average of 14.5 intended air yards per pass, easily leading the NFL in Week 4.

While the efficiency (15/27 passing) may not have been as high on the day, it was clear that San Francisco prioritized their downfield attack in the 30-13 win, where they ended up with five scoring drives on offense.

What led to the number of deep shots on the day from Purdy?

“We caught them in quarters a couple times on both those plays and their safeties were down tight and that’s where the ball has got to go,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said about the deep shots to Jennings and Samuel. “And Brock [Purdy] made two good throws and both the guys came down with the play. Had a third chance that was incomplete, corner did a good job staying on top. But I think it was versus all the same coverages.”

Purdy had a similar message, pointing out that New England’s man-heavy coverage gave San Francisco the looks they wanted to be aggressivee.

“That’s the case for every game is we’re ready for if they present a certain coverage, then we have a shot or an opportunity ready and we’ve just got to execute and capitalize on them,” Purdy said. “And so for this game there was a couple plays where their safeties were low and when we had guys going deep with Deebo [Samuel Sr.] and J.J. [Jauan Jennings].”

“For me, we talked about it on the sideline and I was sort of aggressive to seeing that and let it rip and trust those guys to get under it and make plays and that’s what they did. It was nice to be able to connect on those deeper routes and stuff like that and put that on tape and give us all some confidence moving forward with the deep ball.”

Now, it wasn’t all positive, as Purdy did have an interception on a deep ball intended for Brandon Aiyuk where he was late with the read after a busted coverage, which the quarterback acknowledged postgame.

“Interception, B.A. [Brandon Aiyuk] across the middle of the field. I saw early and then I went to lead him and I didn’t see Jabrill Peppers,” Purdy said. “He sort of fell off and got it. So it’s something that I’ve got to move on in my progressions and not be greedy. I think I hitched to him two or three times, which just isn’t good as a quarterback. You go through your progressions based off of your hitches and you read with your feet and that one I got greedy. I saw him across the middle and Jabrill made a good play.”

Still, there were a ton of positives from the day, with Purdy channeling his aggressiveness to connect on a number of big throws.

Those downfield shots over the top have become more important, as teams are beginning to look to take away many of the intermediate throws that San Francisco flourished with earlier in the Shanahan regime. So, it’s on the quarterback to make the right reads, while maintaining that aggressiveness.

“I feel like in the past couple seasons that’s been something that we’re sort of known for, but people scheme us up and they do a good job with just leverage and taking away certain routes,” Purdy said postgame. “For us, that’s a good opportunity for us to be able to adapt and work on different things as well. Every team is different. They present a new challenge and stuff, but this week was a lot of man coverage. They did a good job of just funneling everything back to the middle of the field. They did a good job with it.”

While the 49ers need to be better as a whole in punching the ball into the end zone, Purdy has started off the season strong statistically, as he leads the NFL in passing yards (1,130), while completing 68.9 percent of his passes and averaging 9.3 yards per attempt.

He’ll continue looking to be aggressive against the Arizona Cardinals in Week 5, who just gave up 42 points to the Washington Commanders, as the 49ers look to notch their first conference win of the year next weekend.