The San Francisco 49ers’ injury-plagued 6-11 season may make it easy for some to forget that quarterback Brock Purdy, the final pick of the 2022 NFL Draft, was a fourth-down stop away from ending his second pro campaign with a Super Bowl LVIII win over Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
During the latest edition of the “Built 4 More” podcast, Purdy opened up about that crushing defeat.
“Last year, especially in the offseason, it was ‘what could have been.’ In our eyes, we were a couple of plays away, and you give him a chance at the end, and in overtime, he did what everybody expects Pat Mahomes to do: score,” Purdy said, as shared by Cam Inman of the Bay Area News Group. “Nothing but respect for him and the way he’s led Kansas City. That game, in general, there are a lot of moments I go back and watch film, and it hurts. ‘I could have done this or that.'”
Among those moments may be a pair of passes disrupted by perfectly executed Kansas City blitzes. One occurred with under two minutes remaining in regulation and prevented the 49ers from running more time off the clock before they scored. In overtime, an unblocked Chris Jones kept Purdy from connecting with an open Jauan Jennings for a touchdown.
The rest, as they say, is history.
“You go through these things and you want everything to be so perfect, but I think God just teaches you so much more when you go through tough things, when everything is not perfect, whether it’s arm surgery, losing the Super Bowl, or just something in life, being able to get through it knowing God got you through and what is he trying to teach you through that,” Purdy continued. “Obviously, I want to win a Super Bowl. I want to win many for San Francisco and the teams I play for.”
Last spring, 49ers legend Steve Young mentioned how the 49ers squandered what will go down as that particular group’s best chance to win a Super Bowl after it held Patrick Mahomes to just 19 points across four quarters of action. San Francisco moved on from multiple key players this offseason to clear out cash and salary-cap space to sign Purdy to a lucrative extension at some point before the 2025 campaign gets underway.
“Going into the game,” Purdy added about Super Bowl LVIII, “I was a little bit spoiled, thinking we got here, it wasn’t easy, but I got here my second year. All these other dudes were all, ‘No, no, no. You’ve got to be grateful for it and go make the most of every play. Because there’s no promise of ever getting back here.’ I’m still trying to process it all.”
The fact that Purdy is “still trying to process” a game that took place over 13 months ago shows how devastating a Super Bowl loss is for some players. Meanwhile, this past season served as a reminder of how quickly things can fall apart for a team that entered September as the reigning conference champion.
