The Giants blitzed Purdy on 33 of his 39 dropbacks, per Next Gen Stats — the 84.6 percent is the highest in the NGS era. With Martindale getting his “teenager-playing-Madden tilt” on, Purdy quickly got rid of the ball, averaging the fastest time to throw of his career (2.34 seconds).
Purdy finished 20-of-31 for 247 yards, two TDs and two sacks versus the blitz. Not too shabby, considering he was often forced to throw off one foot.
Shanahan noted that facing a defensive coordinator like Martindale, especially on a short week, is a tall task for any quarterback.
“Yeah, he missed a couple today and guys made a couple of real good catches also,” he said of Purdy. “I thought it was just a huge challenge. One of the biggest ones Brock’s been in just the short week to prepare for a scheme like that. Just how much they do, they had six guys on the line of scrimmage throughout the game, half the time they’re coming, half the time they’re not. There’s not a comfortable play throughout a game from a play call standpoint and from the quarterback just because there’s a lot of plays that don’t work versus that. So, you got to constantly be looking at it and sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, which is a huge challenge for a quarterback. I thought he settled down throughout it as the game went and ended up playing good enough for us to win.”
It helps to have playmakers like Deebo Samuel, George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey, who can take short dump-offs to long gains. The 49ers generated 215 of their 310 passing yards after the catch Thursday night.
