The history of sport is based on the stories of great dynasties. Dominant teams who knew how to elevate a certain discipline to excellence and marked an era. But sport also reserves a special place for individual stories that stand out within large structures.
The last of them in American football is that of Brock Purdy (24 years old, Arizona), the strategist of the San Francisco 49ers that put the franchise on the verge of winning its first Super Bowl title in 29 years, despite the fact that no one bet on it at first. If this comes to fruition, the Californian entity would tie the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers as the best winners in NFL history, with six championships.
Before landing in the elite, young people strategist you had to register draft annual event hosted by the NFL, as do all college football talents looking to make the leap to professionalism. In the draft In 2022, Purdy became eligible and had to wait until the 262nd pick to be chosen. It was the last place of all. This way, until then strategist from the University of Iowa earned the title of Mister Not relevantas the last player selected in the draftunderlining the little importance that the professional career of the last person in line generally has.
Purdy joined the 49ers roster as a third strategist, something that could be comparable, in terms of being able to see playing time, to being the third goalkeeper on a football team. A few months later, injuries to Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo, numbers one and two at his position, opened the doors to ownership for him, which he has not let go of since.
With little experience, but with a lot of personality, the strategist The rookie took charge of the team in the final games of that season, and with his help, San Francisco reached the National Conference Finals, the round before the Super Bowl. There, Purdy had to leave the field due to injury and watched from the bench as his team fell to the Philadelphia Eagles.
This year, he would seek revenge for that bitter pill, and in his first full year as a starter, he led the 49ers to become the best team in their conference (12-5), just one win behind Baltimore Ravens (13). -4), the team with the best regular season record. They arrived playoffs and San Francisco continued to defeat its rivals until settling into the final game against the almighty Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs, the final test.
A docile “quarterback”
Without being a strategist Endowed with extraordinary qualities, Purdy is a very accomplished player. It’s one of the adjectives that has stayed with him the most during his short NFL career, for better and for worse. His detractors consider him a player of average talent, who benefited from a winning system and environment put in place by Kyle Shanahan, one of the most remarkable coaches in the entire NFL. While his supporters see him as someone who knows how to get the job done.
Purdy is not number one in any category. He doesn’t have the passing repertoire of Patrick Mahomes, the running game of Lamar Jackson or the strength of someone like Josh Allen, but he has proven to be complete and consistent. It is not him strategist who goes beyond the script and wins the game, but he who adopts a system and pushes it to the limit.
Playing with the number 13 on his jersey due to the fanaticism his father instilled in him towards the legendary Dan Marino, Purdy also managed to earn the respect of a locker room full of stars. In a sport as hierarchical as American football, where the strategist is at the top of the pyramid, it is not easy to move from status Mister Not relevant to be the player that everyone, veterans and rookies, listens to before every game.
After qualifying for the Super Bowl, a locker room conversation between Purdy and Nick Bosa went viral, in which the team’s star defensive back expressed surprise at what his teammate had accomplished in such a short time. “What you are doing perplexes me. I was number two in the draft and even so, sometimes I lacked self-confidence,” he told her. “It’s like that, it’s part of the game,” number 262 replied.
Initially considered to play a minor role, Purdy is not among the thirty highest-paid players on the team. His base salary of just under a million dollars per year contrasts with the twenty million per year earned by, for example, receiver Deboo Samuel, whose offensive production depends entirely on the player’s passes. strategist.
With a low profile and a friendly front, Purdy made it clear in the pre-match press conference that he wants to stop being just a pretty story and become champion this Sunday in Las Vegas. “They always ignored me, that’s kind of the story of my life.” In school, in college and also here (in the NFL), after being the last pick. But the only thing I needed was an opportunity,” said Purdy, a supporting actor turned leading man, but one who has yet to perform well on the biggest stage of them all.
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