Brock Purdy’s contract
Brock Purdy’s contract put him on a four-year, $3,737,008 contract with the San Francisco 49ers, including a $77,008 signing bonus, $77,008 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $934,252. He was drafted as the final pick (262nd overall) of the 2022 NFL Draft, making him that year’s Mr. Irrelevant. Despite that, the team had confidence in him. “He’s relevant to us,” general manager John Lynch said.
“I think it’s a funny thing,” Purdy told ESPN at the time. “If you’re a fan, or even my family, friends and stuff, it’s funny to laugh about it and joke around with it. For me, I’m looking at it as an opportunity. I got my foot in the door, a team believed in me and now I get my opportunity to go and play football. That’s what I want my career to be. That’s what I want my job to be is to be an NFL quarterback and now I have the opportunity to do so. That’s how I’m looking at it.”
He continued: “From the outside looking in, I guess it’s a funny thing and I’ll embrace the role and have some fun with it for sure, but at the end of the day I’m trying to go and help a team win the Super Bowl. That’s where my mindset is at with it.”
Kyle Shanahan asked Griese and assistant quarterbacks coach Klay Kubiak to put together a list of names they liked at the position, which included Purdy. “He was a guy we labeled early as our No. 1 free agent we were gonna go after and when you get to there and they haven’t been drafted, we have the last pick, we thought it was perfect,” Shanahan said. “The guy has played a lot of football. He plays the game the right way. He’s extremely tough, gets the ball to the right spots and plays very well in the pocket and is a guy who we think can come in here and help us fill out this roster and give himself a chance to make the team.”
The deal was a steal. Purdy is the top-rated quarterback in the NFL, well on his way to MVP eligibility, which leads some pundits to argue his current contract should be torn up so he can be paid what he deserves. Top quarterbacks, after all, are making anywhere from $12 million to $57 million per year.
In an interview with NBC, Purdy explained that because of his low salary, his living arrangements have had to reflect that. “So, I still have a roommate, one of my offensive linemen here,” Purdy admitted. “So, he and I are still splitting rent. I still drive my Toyota Sequoia and, other than that, it’s pretty simple.”
According to NFL insider Adam Schefter, “In the 2017 NFL Draft in which they held the second overall pick, the 49ers did not study Patrick Mahomes because they believed they would be able to sign Kirk Cousins during 2018 free agency and reunite him with Kyle Shanahan. Those plans were scuttled when the Patriots and offered and traded Jimmy Garoppolo to the 49ers in October 2017,” he tweeted.
“But the one QB the 49ers did trade up to get in the 2017 draft was C.J. Beathard, whom they selected in the third round, 104th overall. Beathard eventually left San Francisco to sign with Jacksonville and, in return, the 49ers got a compensatory 2022 7th-round pick that they used on … Brock Purdy.
He continued: “Had Brock Purdy gone undrafted, he would’ve been contract-extension eligible this offseason. But because the 49ers selected him with the last pick in the draft, he isn’t eligible for a new deal until after the 2024 season.”
