And now we get our usual yearly rundown of rule changes. You know, where the NFL picks and chooses when they want to talk about player safety and when they want to make something that gets better ratings grabs. One of those rules is the Brock Purdy rule. And it was NOT submitted by the San Francisco 49ers. Backed maybe. Argued with video tape perhaps, but it wasn’t something they marched to the competition committee with at season’s end.
The rule says that teams can dress a 3rd QB. They must be on the 53-man roster and can only play after the starting/backup quarterbacks are knocked out of the game. As anyone who comes to this site probably knows, it became a rule after Brock Purdy was knocked out of the NFC Championship game in the first quarter. Hence the name the “Brock Purdy Rule”.
And like you’d expect, there’s resentment by a few non-49ers fans that the 49ers whined and complained to get the rule passed and politicked their way in. Because a third string quarterback was really going to win that game for them.
For those of you who don’t come to this site much (I hope there’s a lot of you today), let’s just clear that little “49ers whined and complained” narrative. Because the 49ers weren’t the ones who submitted the rule. The Detroit Lions did (hit up Pride of Detroit and yell at them). And then other teams supported it—so go scream at them.
And while you complain about the 49ers complaining, tell me how much fun that NFC Championship game was. Unless you were a Philadelphia Eagles fan, it sucked.
This bears repeating since it seems like many missed the part about Detroit proposing the rule. Very similar to how many might have not even watched the NFC Championship game to see why this rule got passed.
But don’t take my word for it, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce voiced some displeasure with the rule change as well:
“This is such [explcitive] just because of what happened in San Fran? All right.”
After quick explanation from Jason Kelce that the Lions were the ones who proposed it, Travis Kelce doubled down:
“...they are basically saying if San Fran would have had a third quarterback they would have went to a Super Bowl. That’s what this means.”
Was a third quarterback really going to be the equalizer in that game? Come on. A 3rd QB would at least make the game watchable at-best and background noise while you did something else at-worst instead of just shutting it off. For anyone thinking this was the league saying the 49ers would have won, it’s not. This is the league saying if San Francisco had a third quarterback, people would have watched from beginning to end.
When what happens in that game, people might not watch. When people don’t watch, all those ads businesses spent a pretty penny on are not seen and then everyone looks at the league like they just robbed them.
So none, none of this was because the 49ers whined and complained about not having a third stringer. This was the Lions proposing that when you lose your starting quarterback you at least have a chance and a majority of teams agreeing because ratings wins, and the league passed this.
Because even with a third stringer, doubtful the 49ers win that game after Brock Purdy goes down.
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