McDonald: Brock Purdy is the 49ers’ leader now. They can’t afford to ‘wait and see’ on his extension

SANTA CLARA — Brock Purdy was subtle in the way he handled it, but the 49ers quarterback planted a flag on getaway day after the conclusion of a gut-punch 6-11 season.

Purdy didn’t sound like someone who was interested in being part of an offseason program without a contract extension. Any thoughts of him playing out the last year of his rookie deal to “prove himself” is social media and talk radio fodder rather than a logical way for the 49ers to do business.

He’s the face of the 49ers now, something his teammates realized as they were leaving the premises and embarking on an early offseason. A few samples:

George Kittle: “One thing I’ve realized is that while I’m a team captain and I can talk to players and hype guys up, when the starting quarterback does it, it just carries more weight. It just does. He did a great job stepping up in that regard.”

Christian McCaffrey: “I’ve experienced a lot of good and a lot of bad in this league and I think he’s done a good job for his first time going through losses like this and maintaining composure, maintaining his work ethic and continuing to just to be himself. That’s a good sign for a young player, because it’s not always like that.”

Dominick Puni: “He’s a cool dude, great leader, commands the huddle and even after the first few weeks he was always making sure I was OK, checking on me. He checked every box from a players’ standpoint, from a leader’s standpoint, a toughness standpoint.”

Ricky Pearsall Jr.: “He’s just a guy people are going to gravitate towards. He’s a good dude, a well-rounded dude, well-spoken. You have no choice but to respect him, want to be friends with him, be teammates with him.”

Pearsall, who has known Purdy since both were Arizona high school players, said the two have already begun to make plans to throw together in the offseason.

Purdy, while avoiding the direct question of whether he would participate in the workout program and OTAs when the 49ers reconvene in April, left zero doubt about his confidence in being the 49ers’ leader into the future after the 49ers went from conference champs to also-rans.

“How you handle the tough times, the losses, the moments of mourning, that makes you who you are,” Purdy said. “You learn from it and grow from it. You can also go in the other direction. Knowing me and my history and who I am and how I’m wired, I’m going to look back at those moments and attack it and be hungry to be in that moment again to capitalize.”

If the 49ers are to climb off the deck, one of the first orders of business should be locking up Purdy as the centerpiece and then building outward. The Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams holdouts became a distraction, and neither of them was a quarterback. The onus will fall on general manager John Lynch, negotiator Paraag Marathe and CEO Jed York as well as a not-so-gentle nudge from coach Kyle Shanahan.

The 49ers haven’t pinched pennies while bringing back their own homegrown talent, whether it be Kittle, linebacker Fred Warner, wide receiver Deebo Samuel or Aiyuk. But some of those negotiations were drawn out and contentious, which would be a detrimental distraction with Purdy.

Purdy is due $5.2 million in 2025 because of a provision that escalates his salary for the fourth year of his rookie deal based on his Pro Bowl selection in 2023. Tim Ryan, the 49ers’ radio analyst, floated the idea of playing wait-and-see with Purdy to address other needs rather than locking him up as soon as possible.

But it’s hard to believe this isn’t the guy Shanahan wants as his quarterback going forward. If Purdy hadn’t come out of nowhere as the last pick of the 2022 NFL Draft, there are no guarantees Shanahan would still be the coach. Shanahan and Lynch went all-in on Trey Lance in 2021, a trade that cost the 49ers dearly in terms of draft capital.

Purdy provided an escape hatch for the Lance mistake. He also enabled Shanahan to move on from an uncomfortable co-existence with Jimmy Garoppolo and re-introduce bootlegs and rollouts to the offense.

No quarterback has won Shanahan’s trust as much as Purdy, and you could include Matt Ryan, who won an MVP in Atlanta with Shanahan as the offensive coordinator.

Take a hard look at the NFL’s top quarterbacks and the only transcendent players are Buffalo’s Josh Allen, Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow, with Justin Herbert of the Chargers threatening to break through.

Among the leaders in APY (average per year) are Dallas’ Dak Prescott ($60 million), Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence ($55 million), Green Bay’s Jordan Love ($55 million) and Miami’s Tua Tagovailoa ($53.1 million). Purdy has more value to the 49ers than all of those players.

So the 49ers will have to swallow hard and pay Purdy something upwards of $50 million, and the sooner they go ahead and make that commitment, the sooner they can start building around him and manipulating the salary cap.

The 49ers thrived with Purdy at the end of 2022 and in 2023 because he made his supporting cast better and they made him better. Being shorn of Williams, Aiyuk and McCaffrey took its toll on production. Yet Purdy, who prides himself on being the same guy every day, only enhanced his standing among his teammates for the way he handled the tough times even as his numbers were taking a predictable dip.

As McCaffrey suggested, that’s a big deal. The 49ers are prepared to play follow the leader in 2025, and there is no dispute as to who that leader is. There’s no time like the present for the 49ers to make that investment in their future.