Brock Purdy may shock the NFL in 2026 after his league-best clutch year
· Yahoo Sports
Brock Purdy may shock the NFL in 2026 after his league-best clutch year originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Visit freshyourfeel.org for more information.
Brock Purdy never reached the heights of his finest individual campaign in 2025, sitting out close to half of San Francisco's schedule, yet the quarterback still delivered elite production in the moments that carried the most weight.
Data from Sumer Sports shows that no signal-caller in the league generated more expected points added per play on third and fourth down last season than Purdy, provided the sample included a minimum of 100 such snaps.
His figure of 0.58 left everyone behind by a wide margin. Green Bay's Jordan Love trailed in second place at 0.42, while New England's Drake Maye, who finished as the MVP runner-up, ranked third with 0.33.
Purdy sat 0.16 ahead of Love and more than doubled the 0.15 logged by Patrick Mahomes, who landed sixth. Josh Allen, a quarterback frequently named among the sport's finest, came in fifth at 0.20, and Jalen Hurts occupied ninth with 0.14.
Across the year, Purdy connected on 69.4% of his throws, attempting only 284 passes for 2,167 yards along with 20 scores and 10 picks. A telling detail behind those clutch numbers: of his 197 completions, 130 moved the chains for first downs.
Late-down snaps rank among football's tightest pressure points, since converting them keeps drives alive, drains the clock, and forces defenses to stay disciplined. Producing positive value there more reliably than any peer reflects both Purdy's reads and how sharp Kyle Shanahan's system becomes once the margin for error shrinks.
Why a revamped 49ers receiving corps fuels Purdy's MVP push
Forecasting a Most Valuable Player winner this far out carries obvious risk, given that nobody can foresee injuries or how fresh personnel and staff will gel before camp opens.
Even so, NFL.com's Dan Parr ran through his leading dark horse contenders for the award, leaving out the ten favorites by DraftKings odds recorded on June 9 because those names would hardly qualify as surprises.
Parr slotted Purdy at the top of that group, reasoning that the quarterback keeps running the same scheme he has known his whole career and now benefits from San Francisco's offseason shopping. The franchise reshaped his supporting cast in a big way.
Landing future Hall of Famer Mike Evans headlined the spree, but the team also added Christian Kirk, who has cleared 1,000 receiving yards before, and spent a second-round selection (No. 33 overall) on De'Zhaun Stribling. With that kind of firepower around him, books like Sportaza now carry Purdy among their MVP options, and Shanahan's arsenal grows almost unfair if 2024 first-rounder Ricky Pearsall pops too.
Purdy still works behind a strong line and shares the backfield with Christian McCaffrey, arguably his most dangerous weapon. George Kittle's recovery from an Achilles tear bears watching, though Jake Tonges filled in capably last year.
Purdy has flirted with the honor already, placing fourth in 2023 voting after posting 4,280 yards, 31 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions during his first full season as a starter. Two injury-marred years followed, and 2026 shapes up as the season in which everything around him could finally align.