Why Patrick Mahomes is more of a game manager than Brock Purdy

Henry McKenna

AFC East Reporter

It’s impossible to know what someone means when they call a quarterback a “game manager.”

It’s a Rorschach test in the form of football jargon. 

Is it an insult? Is it a compliment? 

Yes. Both.

The problem with jargon like “game manager” is that it is innately ambiguous. Anyone who thinks about the phrase literally thinks of a quarterback who manages the game for four quarters. In that case, they’re talking about a quarterback operating at the highest level. The perfect quarterback, in a sense. Anyone who sees the term on a more colloquial or conversational level is probably using it as an insult — a euphemism for mediocrity.

I’m here to tell you why Super Bowl LVIII will feature Brock Purdy, a game manager.

And Patrick Mahomes, another game manager. 

We’ll get to Mahomes, the biggest and baddest game manager in the NFL. (And statistics show that Mahomes has actually been the league’s checkdown king.) But first let’s talk Purdy, who is most often accused of game management and, as a result, has turned into a polarizing player to evaluate.

Because when people say it about Purdy, they’re not being nice.

“It’s such a weird conversation to hear the whole world talking about this,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan told NFL Network on Monday during Super Bowl Opening Night. “In my opinion, there’s no such thing as a great quarterback if you can’t be a game manager. So, I don’t get how being a system quarterback or a game manager is a negative. …

“You’re a game manager, you run the system right and you can make plays. … Brock does all three of those things, so I don’t get what we’re talking about.”

49ers QB Brock Purdy downplays “game-manager” label

The critics might then investigate, at great depth, those three things that Purdy does. How big are those plays? How gutsy can Purdy get while continuing to execute at a high level?

Just to make a mockery of the whole conversation about game…

Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/why-patrick-mahomes-is-more-of-a-game-manager-than-brock-purdy

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Publish date : 2024-02-07 21:25:24

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