Sunday very easily could’ve been emotional for Brock Purdy.
He could’ve taken the early bus to Lincoln Financial Field and walked the grass a couple of hours before the game. He could’ve tried recounting tearing up his throwing elbow in last year’s NFC championship to get the memory rattled free before kickoff. He could’ve taken time to reflect on just how far he’d come in the 10 months since the injury.
The 23-year-old could’ve done all of those things, but he didn’t.
Because Sunday, for Purdy, wasn’t about last year for his team, so it wasn’t ever going to be about that personally, either.
San Francisco’s game against the Eagles was about the future of the Niners, not about the past.
“It was Week 13 for me,” Purdy told me over the phone as he was getting ready to leave Philly. “I didn’t want to get too caught up in or anything like that. I wanted to go in and execute for my boys, and obviously win the game. We have a bunch of crucial games coming up to finish out the season. That’s where I was at. If I got caught up in , I don’t think I would have been as focused and as detailed as I needed to be.”
Whatever he did worked. Whatever the Niners did worked.
And when I say whatever San Francisco did worked, I mean just about everything.
The final from Philly was 42–19, and somehow that doesn’t fully illustrate just how thoroughly San Francisco thrashed an Eagles team that’d been borderline impossible to conquer over the past two months. The defending NFC champions had come back from halftime deficits in consecutive games against the Cowboys, Chiefs and Bills, with a quarterback playing at an MVP level, sturdy lines on both sides of the ball, and a cast of star skill guys on offense. They’d taken everyone’s best shot and knocked everyone out.
On this rainy afternoon, that script was flipped. The Niners withstood the early flurry, put a foot in the (muddy) ground, and made the Eagles look worse than Philly made anyone else look this year. They ran for 146 yards. They threw for 310. They converted 72.7% of their third downs, harassed Jalen Hurts and pounded the Eagles into submission.
The Niners showed why so many rival coaches and scouts think there’s no better roster in the NFL. And, as Purdy said, it’s about where a team that’s been in three of the last four NFC title games goes next.
