How Purdy’s scrambles ‘hurt’ 49ers in loss to Cardinals originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SANTA CLARA — In the 49ers’ 24-23 loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday at Levi’s Stadium, Brock Purdy again showed his ability to evade defenders, but coach Kyle Shanahan explained that on some plays, it can throw the timing of the offense off.
The 49ers coach spoke to local media via conference call on Monday and shared that while extending plays can be very beneficial for the team, there is a fine line where the timing of the play can be thrown out of whack and the result can be detrimental.
“Yeah, always,” Shanahan said. “That’s why you try to cover that too when those things happen, good or bad. Last week I thought it really helped out and he made a number of plays with it, but I think I also said last week there was a couple that it hurt us on.”
In the 49ers’ Week 4 win over the New England Patriots, Purdy completed two of his four attempts for 27 yards when he scrambled out of the tackle box, according to ProFootballFocus. Purdy also scrambled twice for 12 yards, both for first downs.
On Sunday, there were two times when Purdy scrambled that ended in a crucial loss of yardage.
“There’s always some good and bad from both of those things,” Shanahan said. “You hope the good outweighs the bad, which it has. But there was a couple in particular, that sack on the second-and-14 that were tough to overcome.”
On Sunday, Purdy completed two of his four attempts for 12 yards after scrambling out of the tackle box, but also was sacked twice. The first sack occurred on the 49ers’ second drive, when the offense was on the Cardinals’ 6-yard line, in a third-and-goal situation.
The play failure pushed the team back to the 10-yard line where Jake Moody kicked a successful field goal.
Purdy scrambled four times for 33 yards during the game; three of which resulted in first downs to keep drives alive. However, the quarterback sack that Shanahan was referring to was a mistake that could have changed the outcome of the game.
Purdy’s second sack occurred while scrambling during the offense’s second drive of the third quarter, again in the red zone. It was a second-and-14 situation and Purdy was taken down for a nine-yard loss.
The sack pushed the offense back to the 27-yard line and out of field goal range for punter Mitch Wishnowsky, who had taken over kicking duties for Moody who left the game with an ankle injury before halftime.
There were several mistakes across the board in the game, but losing the opportunity to attempt a field goal in the third quarter was an error that the 49ers could not overcome.
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