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Shanahan has seen the same player week in and week out with Brock Purdy, regardless of the result.
We’ve spent a lot of time this week obsessing over the 49ers loss to the Browns. For as many mistakes as the Niners made against what’s been a historic defense to date, they were a chip shot away from remaining undefeated.
Purdy didn’t play well, but you could say that for the majority of the 49ers offense. That was the takeaway from Week 6. But as a quarterback in the NFL, you get too much credit when your team wins and too much blame when you’re not victorious.
Monday night will be the first time that we’ve seen Brock Purdy in a game after a loss. The Niners offense is primed to hit the ground running in Week 7. They’re still top-3 in every meaningful or major statistic, from points per drive to success rate.
Meanwhile, the Vikings’ defense toes the line between slightly below average and bottom-five in many of those same metrics. Here’s Kyle Shanahan on what he sees in the Vikings defense:
“I see a team that causes a lot of issues. I mean, they blitz more than anyone in the league. You can never just relax and just call a play or run a play because there’s always a thousand things that can go wrong just because of the threat of what they do in any situation. So they’re on you a lot with that
They get you to make mistakes in that way. I mean, you look at the two games that they won it’s because they created a turnover with those pressures where they didn’t have a guy to block a guy. They didn’t have a hot throw. The quarterback fumbles it and they return two for touchdowns there in the second half. That’s got both of their wins. So, they’re a team that challenges you schematically and everything and when they do that, you got to be on it.”
Minnesota is tenth defensively in punts per drive and ninth in 3-and-outs per drive. Through six weeks, the Vikings are blitzing 57 percent of the time, which is the highest-rate in the NFL. But Minnesota always rushes just three 18 percent of the time, which is also the highest-rate in the league.
Defensive coordinator Brian Flores will attempt to throw different looks at personnel at Purdy, attempting to confuse him pre-snap and force the second-year quarterback into turnovers.
Shanahan isn’t concerned about what to expect from Purdy, as he’s seen the same quarterback, despite the result on the scoreboard from the week before:
“Same way he always does. I mean, we will see. This is the first time responding to a loss, but in terms of not designating anything wins or losses. If we would’ve won in the last play of the game, he’d still have to respond the same way. So, it’s him just doing his job and coming in here and being the same way he has been since the day we’ve met him. I don’t think we’re stressed about that too much because I’ve never seen a different guy.”
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