Fantasy Football 2025: QB Brock Purdy player profile

Brock Purdy had a memorable 2023: His passing efficiency was elite, thanks to his strong play and an excellent supporting cast.
Purdy survives the 2024 storm: The San Francisco 49ers dealt with several issues over the course of 2024, and yet Purdy’s fantasy value was barely impacted.
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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

PFF’s Fantasy Football Player Profile series delivers the most in-depth fantasy football analysis available for the 2025 season.

Using PFF’s exclusive data, we evaluate player performance, competition for touches and how teammates and coaching staffs

Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Tuesday, June 3

Player performance

Brock Purdy went from Mr. Irrelevant in 2022 to the San Francisco 49ers‘ starter in Week 14, and he hasn’t lost the starting job since. He finished seven consecutive games with two or more touchdowns in 2022, including the playoffs, leading him to be the 49ers' starter in 2023.

Purdy averaged 19.4 points per game in his second season, eighth among quarterbacks. He’s been a good quarterback in a great scheme with great talent around him. His 9.6 yards per attempt were tied for the eighth-most in NFL history. The only quarterback who’s had a better season since 1960 was Kurt Warner in 2000.

Life was much more difficult for Purdy in 2024 than in 2023. He dealt with a back injury early in the season, missed a game in November due to a right shoulder injury and missed the last game of the season due to a right elbow injury. Running back Christian McCaffrey only played four games, wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk seven games, left tackle Trent Williams 10 games, and wide receiver Deebo Samuel only missed two games but was clearly impacted by injury in several others. There were also injuries on defense, and multiple players dealt with tragedies.

Purdy’s big-time throw rate and passing touchdowns per game noticeably declined. While his fantasy value as a passer declined, he became more willing to run the ball when he was under pressure. His rushing yards per game and rushing touchdowns per game more than doubled compared to the previous season. His 2.9 scrambles per game were the fourth-most among quarterbacks last season. This hurt his high-end value and lowered his fantasy points per game slightly but made him reach the top-12 fantasy quarterbacks a little more consistently.

Over his three years as a starter, his 8.9 yards per attempt are the most among quarterbacks, leading to 0.54 fantasy points per dropback, which are the second-most.

Projected utilization

Pudy will be entering his fourth season with Kyle Shanahan as his head coach. Nearly all of the quarterbacks expected to be fantasy starters this season are aided by continuity in their offense. Purdy had to hold onto the ball a little longer this year and throw deeper passes, as the team was falling behind more often. The team is expected to have better injury luck this season, ideally bringing some of Purdy’s numbers back to his 2023 form.

Unfortunately, that could also mean his rushing stats will drop back down. If Purdy has more open receivers to throw to, he is more likely to throw to them rather than scramble himself. His increase in designed runs came entirely from an increase in quarterback sneaks. When the 49ers were one yard away from a first down or touchdown, they ran with Purdy 13.6% of the time in 2023 and 31.7% of the time in 2024. The 49ers' rate of converting each of the last two seasons has been higher with Purdy than with any of their running backs. This could be a case of selection bias, where the 49ers are more likely to run a sneak with inches to go and less likely to do so if they are further away. Regardless, we should expect Purdy to continue sneaking when the 49ers are in a good position for him to sneak, which could continue to lead to some rushing touchdowns.

Impact of teammates

The 49ers were able to retain most of their offense this offseason, but there are injury concerns for most of their star players. McCaffrey, Aiyuk and Williams are all coming back from injury, while George Kittle has missed at least one game in each of the last six seasons. Their main losses were Deebo Samuel and Aaron Banks, so the 49ers are largely turning to the next man up.

While all of the star players with potential injury concerns would usually add risk for Purdy, he showed last season that he can match his fantasy success with or without those players. Purdy will likely be fine as long as Kyle Shanahan is his head coach and he has at least two of his top three receiving options.

Bottom line

Purdy doesn’t have the elite passing or elite rushing to be among the top-five fantasy quarterbacks, but he plays well enough with enough talent around him with Kyle Shanahan coaching him that he’s a decent bet to remain a fantasy starter more often than not.

Footnotes

Statistics in tables and charts were chosen based on their ability to predict future fantasy performance on a per-game or per-opportunity basis or to describe the player relative to others at the same position.
“Opportunities” are defined as passing dropbacks, rushing attempts and routes run as a receiver.
Numbers are provided either by season or based on the past three years. For rookies, only college statistics are included. For non-rookies, only NFL statistics are considered, regardless of whether they played in college within the previous three years.
As college competition is easier than NFL competition, most rookies are likely to see a decline from their historical numbers.
Only FBS data is considered for college players and comparisons.
Kneel-downs are removed from rushing data to provide cleaner quarterback rushing rate statistics.
The table colors in this article range from blue (indicating good/high) to red (indicating bad/low).
All percentiles and color codings compare the given player to others with a high sample of opportunities. Generally, the cutoff is one-third of the possible opportunities in the sample. If a player does not meet the threshold, they are still included in the comparison, though their results may appear better or worse than expected due to the smaller, less predictive sample size.
Information on utilization classifications and their importance can be found here for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.