The 49ers Are Ready to Pay Brock Purdy

The San Francisco 49ers have been one of the NFL’s most dominant teams over the last few seasons, going to four NFC Championship Games and two Super Bowls in the last five years. They haven’t won a title, but their consistency is matched by only the Kansas City Chiefs, who beat San Francisco this past February to win their third Super Bowl since 2019.

While the 49ers may have fallen short, they can take solace in finding their quarterback of the future. Brock Purdy took over in place of the Trey Lance/Jimmy Garoppolo tandem late in the 2022 season and led his team to the NFC Championship Game. They failed to advance because Purdy got hurt but he played well enough to earn the starting job for the 2023 season and delivered in his first full year under center. The Iowa State product threw for 4,280 yards and completed 69.4 percent of his passes. He finished the year with 31 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. Purdy also led the league in touchdown percentage (7.0 percent), yards gained per passing attempt (9.6), passer rating (113.0) and QBR (72.8).

Most importantly for his team, Purdy played at that level while making almost nothing compared to his contemporaries. As a former seventh-round draft pick still on his rookie contract, he made $870,000 last season. To put that in perspective, there were 17 quarterbacks in the NFL last year who made more than $870,000 per game. Purdy played like one of the better players at his position for a pittance, a tremendous advantage for San Francisco. The quarterback’s small salary allows the team to shell out big-time cash for high-end talent elsewhere on the roster.

it’s not an arrangement that will last forever. Purdy will expect to be compensated handsomely the moment he is eligible to sign a contract extension, which will come during the 2025 offseason. Niners CEO Jed York spoke to reporters on this topic during the owners’ meetings in Florida on Wednesday and sounded ready to reward Purdy for spending a few years as one of the most underpaid players in the entire NFL:

“It’s what the market is. Brock is going to ask for something that no one has ever asked for before,” York said without trepidation. “I don’t know how many players are making over $40 million (annually) as a quarterback right now.”

“When we signed Jimmy several years ago, it was the largest deal in the history of the NFL, for three minutes,” York said. “But Jimmy was at ($27.5 million). That’s what the market is, and you have to accept the reality of the world.

“To me, the quarterback is the most important position not just in football, but all of sports, and those guys should be paid a lot of money.”

York is saying all the right things to keep Purdy happy, and he is speaking truth. There is indeed no position in sports more important than quarterback. It is impossible to win games at a high clip in the NFL without at least an above-average quarterback and it’s extraordinarily difficult to win Super Bowls without one of the best signal-callers in the league. Purdy has yet to reach the latter benchmark but he played well enough last year to be considered among the former.

Assuming he keeps that up in the 2024 season, Purdy will receive a market-setting contract. As York points out, in order to keep a good-to-great starting quarterback from hitting free agency, the team has to pay top-end money. Purdy won’t be taking a discount just because he clearly isn’t on the same tier as Patrick Mahomes. He is good enough to ask for the moon from the 49ers and the organization will be happy to give it to him because it would be extremely hard to find another quarterback who can lead the team deep into the postseason.

What does asking for the moon look like in this circumstance? Right now the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL, by total value of their contract, is Joe Burrow. The former No. 1 overall pick signed a $275 million deal with the Cincinnati Bengals in September with $219 million total guaranteed. That’s Purdy’s target zone. He’ll likely be asking for a five-year contract worth somewhere between $270 million and $290 million total with over $200 million guaranteed from San Francisco. Those numbers will fluctuate based on his 2024 performance but that’s the rough outline for a new Purdy deal.

That is a pretty penny, to be sure. But it’s the cost of doing business in the NFL. Good starting quarterbacks are in such low supply (and such high demand) that they can effectively ask for whatever they’d like in contract negotiations and get it. The 49ers do not have much choice in the matter. Fortunately for Purdy, it sounds like York is very much aware of that fact and will happily be signing the check when the time comes.

Liam McKeone is a staff writer at The Big Lead.