Brock Purdy sets a Next Gen Stats record for completion percentage

Next Gen Stats has a passing metric called Completion percentage over expected. It’s a derivative of completion probability, which measures the success of a pass relative to the difficulty of the throw. It’s worth noting that this CPOE adjusts for dropped passes.

Against the Cardinals on Sunday, 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy had a CPOE of +28%, which was the highest mark by a quarterback with at least 20 passing attempts over the last seven plus seasons. To add perspective about how well Purdy played, his previous career-high in CPOE was +5.1%.

A look at Purdy’s passing chart shows he had five completions of at least 10+ yards. When you look at a few other numbers that Next Gen Stats provides, Purdy is second among all quarterbacks in Week 4 in average completed air yards. We are seeing a 49ers quarterback continuously push the ball down the field.

Kudos to Kyle Shanahan for dialing up a few deep passes to his best wide receiver, Brandon Aiyuk. But on the team’s longest completed pass in the air, Purdy uncorked a throw 46.8 yards and landed only where Aiyuk could make the reception.

Purdy’s aggressiveness in those situations is paying dividends to the 49ers offense. It’s a significant reason why the offense scored 30+ points in a row once again. To put into perspective how well Purdy executed on Sunday, the only quarterbacks with a higher passer rating in Week 4 are Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson.