Who is the next Brock Purdy?
With the last pick of the 2022 NFL Draft, the San Francisco 49ers selected Brock Purdy, earning him the unfortunate title of “Mr Irrelevant”. In true 90’s movie script style, once given the opportunity to show his talents on the football field, he went on to turn that title on its head, leading his team’s passing attack deep into the playoffs. Stories like his are not written everyday, but lucky for us, hidden gems like him come along much more frequently.
The 2022 NFL season saw a record breaking 64 different Quarterbacks under centre for the 32 franchises. This was due to various factors like injuries, suspensions and mid season divorce in the case of Derek Carr and Raider Nation. The biggest takeaway though was how critical to success a competent back up Quarterback is if you have lavish aspirations as a winning organisation.
Brock Purdy’s transition into the NFL was made much easier by landing on one of the league’s best built rosters under the leadership of an elite play caller in Kyle Shanahan. Which is not to undermine Purdy’s contribution to the machine, because if you threw in a mere mortal like me at QB in that team I’d have Josh Rosen looking like peak Tom Brady. During his 4 year stint at Iowa State, Purdy put up a productive and efficient profile, throwing for 12,170 yards, 81 Touchdowns at an efficient 8,4 Adjusted Yards/Attempt whilst completing 67,7% of his passes.
So we’ve establish that this year’s “Brock Purdy” must satisfy these requirements; productive, efficient and under the radar. So without further ado, I present to you Fresno State Bulldogs Quarter back, Jake Haener. A small percentile of those who lay eyes on this article will ask “Who?” . So , we can go ahead and check off the “under the radar requirement. As far as production and efficiency are concerned he threw for a total 9,120 yards and 68 Touchdowns at an efficient 8,9 Adjusted Yards/ Attempt with a good pass completion percentage of 68,2.
Certain to get drafted in the later rounds due to the lack of hype and airtime from the talking heads, a sharp General Manager is bound to land their organisation a good Quarterback you can build around, for a cheap price. With any luck, Jake Haener will land in a good situation and will have the opportunity to showcase his talents and win over some fans. If all goes accordingly, this time next year we’ll be asking “Who’s the next Jake Haener?”