Brock Purdy, 49ers need to raise comeback game after Bengals loss – San Francisco Chronicle

The opportunity was there for the taking. One of the few things Brock Purdy has yet to do in his young career is lead the San Francisco 49ers to a dramatic fourth-quarter comeback.
On Sunday, with Joe Montana sitting in the building, he had the chance. With his team trailing by a touchdown in the fourth quarter, Purdy got the ball back, and immediately threw an interception. Late in the game, now down by 14 and with a reprieve when an interception was nullified by a roughing the passer call, Purdy was sacked and fumbled the ball away to Cincinnati.
Game over.
“Clearly towards the end of the game I was starting to force things, and not see things clearly,” Purdy said. “You’ve got to let the game come to you.”
For the third straight week, the game did not come to the 49ers. Both the game, and a win, eluded the 49ers. And this third straight loss was the worst yet: it came at home, it had been dubbed a “must win” by Fred Warner, and it came right before the bye week. So for 14 days it is going to hurt and throb, like an infected wound.
“The good news is that it’s going to fester,” said George Kittle, wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the word “CHAOS.” “It’s going to be really annoying.”
Annoying. Chaotic. Shocking. Panic-inducing. Pick your reaction. The 49ers are 5-3, still better than they were a year ago. But this is not a happy or fun 5-3. After starting 5-0 and losing three straight, falling into second place in their division and two games behind the mighty Eagles in their conference, the 49ers are going in decidedly the wrong direction.
Most of the panic and puzzle surrounds the defense, the problems with the pass rush, the new defensive coordinator. And that’s all very concerning, especially as the 49ers’ once dominant defense has, in consecutive weeks, made Kirk Cousins and Joe Burrow look like Tom Brady and Joe Montana. (Before the game Montana made a point to embrace Burrow on the field, the two Joe Cools hanging together.) Burrow and Cousins combined to go 62 of 77 for 661 yards for 10.6 yards per completion.
But the offense is also a huge cause for concern. After scoring 30 or more points in their first five games, the 49ers have managed just 17 points each of the past three weeks. And they don’t have Jimmy Garoppolo to blame anymore.
Kittle said he feels the team hasn’t been able to do what it does best: execute outside zone running plays.
“So far we haven’t been able to do that because of penalties and turnovers,” he said. “Us being a one-dimensional football team hasn’t been very good.”
After the fairytale beginning to Purdy’s career, he also seems to be regressing, along with the rest of the team. He was accountable for three of those turnovers.
Purdy cleared concussion protocol on Saturday, the day before the game. For parts of the game, he was very good. He completed 22 of 31 passes for 365 yards and was the team’s leading rusher with 57 yards (which in itself is a red flag for the 49ers offense).
But he threw two second-half interceptions, just three minutes apart. The first on Cincinnati’s eight-yard line, at the end of the third quarter, effectively nullifying a touchdown that could have tied the game, and the other on the first possession of the fourth quarter, looking for Brandon Aiyuk. And he had the fumble to end the 49ers’ chances.
“I felt 100%,” Purdy said. “All week, my symptoms and stuff weren’t bad compared to any other concussions that the team has had. I was doing fine for each phase of the protocol and I felt 100% going into this game.”
Should he have been playing? The world will second-guess, but once he cleared protocol he was going to play. Kyle Shanahan didn’t think Purdy was compromised.
“He had those turnovers, but he made some really good plays in the game,” Shanahan said. “We were getting one-dimensional… I thought (Purdy) was one of the reasons we were in this game today.”
But on the play before he fumbled, Purdy threw another interception but was hit hard by the Bengals’ D.J. Reader, who drew a roughing the passer penalty. He landed on his back, his head hit the turf and he immediately grabbed his helmet with both hands. Exactly the kind of play that you don’t want to see happen to a player who has just suffered a brain injury. But Purdy shrugged it off.
“It’s a typical whiplash play like that,” Purdy said. “Your head goes back and hits the ground. But just like any other body part that gets hit, you shake it off a little bit and go from there.”
Ohhhkay. That’s not what medical science says about a hit to the head just days following a concussion. So we’ll see what happens the next few days and hope this doesn’t turn into a situation like the Dolphins faced last year with Tua Tagovailoa.
After throwing no interceptions in the first five games, Purdy has thrown five in the past three. Some of that is a normal slump that’s going to happen to a young player. But he has definitely looked ordinary. And like with everything else going wrong, the 49ers’ quarterback hasn’t been able to make a correction.
“Brock’s the reason we’re in every football game,” Kittle said. “I don’t know what it takes to play quarterback, I don’t play that position. All I know is, it’s hard to win football games when you lose the turnover battle. We just have to play better.”
In every aspect. At least the 49ers have that: they are failing collectively.
“We gotta take it, that team beat us straight up,” Shanahan said. “The bottom line is we’ve gotta get better in every aspect. The things that disappointed me today were with some of the fundamentals of just throwing, catching, tackling.”
Everything.
For the moment, the 49ers look like frontrunners. Great with a big lead. Not so great when they’re struggling and need to come from behind.
“We haven’t shown that we can play from behind and come back and win the football game,” Warner said. “So that’s something that we’ve got to address and get better at. We can’t just be a team that can only win when we’re up.”
The opportunity for the comeback was there. The maestro of the comeback was watching.  But Purdy couldn’t make it happen. That box remains unchecked.
“We’ve got to be better at bouncing back off of adversity,” Warner said.
We’ll have to wait for two weeks to find out if they can.
Reach Ann Killion: akillion@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @annkillion
Born in San Francisco and raised in Marin County, Ann Killion has covered Bay Area sports for more than a quarter of a century. An award-winning columnist and a veteran of 11 Olympics, several World Cups and the Tour de France, Ann joined The Chronicle in 2012. Ann has worked for the San Jose Mercury News, the Los Angeles Times and Sports Illustrated. She is a New York Times best-selling author, having co-written “Solo: A Memoir of Hope” with soccer star Hope Solo,”Throw Like A Girl” with softball player Jennie Finch and two middle-grade books on soccer, “Champions of Women’s Soccer” and “Champions of Men’s Soccer.” She was named California Sportswriter of the Year in 2014, 2017 and 2018. She has two children and lives in Mill Valley.

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