The San Francisco 49ers have been clearing out their squad, and one former quarterback has suggested Brock Purdy should be next.
The franchise looks set to hand Purdy a mega contract ahead of the 2025 season, but negotiations have dragged on, and speculation is rife about his future.
On Monday’s Pro Football Talk, former NFL quarterback Chris Simms suggested a remarkable solution to the Purdy situation.
He suggested they should hit the reset button this offseason and trade him to a surprise NFC team.
“Would the Steelers want Brock Purdy as their quarterback?” Simms asked.
“It might be too late in the game to make a move like that for the 49ers right now.
“But if I had something to say about it, I would have said, ‘Let’s just blow this thing up, let’s trade him away to somebody and let’s get somebody else at quarterback for the future and build this team again.’
“That’s what I would want to do. My friends Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch probably are going to hate me for saying this.”
It should be noted that the 49ers head coach, Kyle Shanahan, and Simms are best friends; they went to the University of Texas together and have each other’s initials tattooed on their ankles.
The 49ers selected Pro Bowl passer Purdy with the final pick of the 2022 NFL Draft.
They’ve fielded him on a four-year, $3.7million deal but now’s the time to pay up.
But Purdy is reportedly holding out for $50m+ a year (that’s $250 million over a five-year extension), placing him somewhere inside the NFL’s best-paid QBs, and talks have stagnated.
Purdy clearly wants to be paid like the NFL’s best, but Simms claims the rest of the league does not view him as a top-ten quarterback.
“Nobody looks at Brock Purdy as a top-10 quarterback in football, ” he said.
“Nobody. Yeah with Shanahan as his OC and the 49er all star team around him the last few years, yeah he can look pretty good. He can look top-10ish. But we just saw last year when the 49er all star team got injured, they went 6 and 11 and we’re talking about paying him over 50 million dollars a year?… It’s a tough situation and I would not want to see them pay over 45 million dollars a year if I was running the team.”
This isn’t the first time Simms has been critical of Purdy. Back in January, he blasted the idea of the quarterback getting a $250 million payday after a 23-13 season.
“A lot of quarterbacks can go into San Francisco and look pretty good,” Simms said.
“Baker Mayfield is making 30 (million) and you’re not even close to as good as Baker Mayfield — sorry.
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“That’s where the rubber has to meet the road. At one point, one of these teams is going to have to go. ‘Just because he’s our quarterback doesn’t mean we have to make him one of the five highest-paid guys in all of football.’
“That’s insane. It’s ruining teams.”
Simms believed that Purdy is worth half of that, at best, adding: “If I’m the 49ers, I’m offering like $30 million.
Then he lowered the bar seconds later and said, “I’m offering 25 (million).”
While a new deal is yet to be signed, all roads seem to be heading to a new deal for Purdy.
As talks continue, head coach Kyle Shanahan was asked about the possibility of Purdy holding out if a deal cannot be struck the the time the 2025 season comes around.
“I know Brock doesn’t want to do that,” he insisted. “We don’t want to do that. I mean, no one wants to do that.
“But these are negotiations that go on between agents and our organization, and it’s over a lot of money and stuff.”
Ultimately, Purdy is set to be the starting quarterback for the Niners for the foreseeable.
How much it’ll cost the team remains to be seen.
