The quarterback believes the entire team is capable of even more

The San Francisco 49ers apparently had eyes for Tom Brady before sticking with Brock Purdy last NFL season.

Now Purdy has eyes on Brady as he looks to take another step in his improbable career, telling the San Francisco Chronicle this week he’s aiming to achieve a Brady-esque feel for the game when it comes to late-game reliability.

“With as good of a team that we have, I want to get to that point where we get to the third quarter, there’s a couple of drives that are crucial, I’m on top of my stuff, we convert on third downs, and we score touchdowns and the lead just gets out of hand,” Purdy said.

“It’s having that Tom Brady kind of feeling. Late in the game, it always felt like Tom was just gonna take over and not make it close. I feel like I can get to that.”

This is an admitted change in mindset from Purdy, who went on to recount 2023 hiccups that he believes stemmed from a desire to simply not lose a game when the going got tough.

“I want to be dominant,” Purdy said. “Not just win games and feel like, ‘Eh.’ I want to be dominant with consistent decisions and [feel] like we’re the top dogs every day. … There were moments last year in games where I would just — I don’t know what it was in the situation — but we’d be up and it’s, ‘All right, be smart with the ball,’ or ‘Let’s just make sure we don’t mess up.’ I want to break through that and get to this point of just being dominant, for four quarters, man. That’s my mindset.”

49ers fans could argue that Purdy shouldn’t be so hard on himself. Through just two NFL seasons, the former seventh-round draft pick has gone 21-6 as a starter, including playoffs, helping San Francisco reach back-to-back NFC championships while throwing 44 touchdowns to 15 interceptions and posting a 111.4 passer rating. He and the 49ers came up just short in Super Bowl LVIII against the Kansas City Chiefs.