Brock Purdy shoulders blame for Niners' loss

It took 11 games, but Brock Purdy has finally lost a regular-season start. The former Mr. Irrelevant had led the San Francisco 49ers to 10 straight wins dating back to last season, and his first career loss came in the most unimaginable way possible.

Despite being on the road, the Niners were favored by as many as 9.5 points by most oddsmakers ahead of their class with the Cleveland Browns. Deshaun Watson’s absence was expected to be a deadly blow to the home team’s offense.

However, Jim Schwartz’s defense had its most impressive performance yet, locking up one of the most explosive offenses in the game and holding them to just 17 points. When asked about the loss, Purdy didn’t hesitate to take the blame and vowed to be better:

“It’s the NFL,” Purdy told 49ers Web Zone. “You get opportunities; you got to take advantage of them. And so there was [sic] definitely some throws and opportunities, I feel like that were there for me, and I missed on them, and that made us be behind the sticks. And then you have to get a third down, which is tough on the road here. And that’s something that I got to learn from, man. So [I am] definitely going to be real about it, and we all got to look ourselves in the mirror and see the flaws and stuff and get better from it. But it starts with me.”

It Was The Perfect Storm

Everything went the Browns’ way on Sunday. The Niners lost their two best playmakers, with Deebo Samuel and Christian McCaffrey leaving the field with shoulder and oblique injuries, respectively, and putting more pressure on Purdy to lead the offense down the field.

Purdy looked far from his usual self without his set of stellar weapons at his disposal. Even so, he made no excuses and stated that he needed to do a better job of getting the guys involved to help them fill in for the stars:

“Obviously, they’re playmakers really good playmakers, and so it hurts, but at the same time, we got guys to be able to come in and make plays, too,” Purdy said. “And so that’s on me, being able to help out guys like Ray-Ray [WR Ray-Ray McCloud] and JJ [WR Jauan Jennings] that are going to play more, Elijah [RB Elijah Mitchell] coming in. I got to do a better job with just communicating to them in the huddle, giving them some sort of expectation of what’s to come in terms of the play and stuff.”

Even despite the absences, the Niners still had a chance to win the game as the clock expired. Then, in what seemed like a true miracle for the home team, K Jake Moody missed a routine field goal from 41 yards that would’ve given them a one-point lead. It was just the perfect storm.

The Browns’ Defense Is Legit

Injuries or not, the Browns defense deserves a lot of credit for the win. Even with backup QB P.J. Walker completing just 18 of 34 passes for 192 yards and two interceptions, they were able to stay on top of their rivals and keep the game close from start to finish.

They held the Niners to 215 total yards (107 passing, 108 rushing), and forced them to go 3-for-12 in third down. They also sacked Purdy three times for a loss of 18 yards, picked him up once, and forced six punts.

According to the NFL, The Browns defense officially has the least yards given up through the first five games of the season (1,002) in the past 50 years. And while it definitely wasn’t pretty, a win is a win.