Brock Purdy is outside the NFL’s top 10 quarterbacks again — at least according to the people who run the league’s front offices. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler published his annual survey of more than 70 executives, coaches and scouts Monday, and the San Francisco 49ers quarterback landed in the honorable mentions for the second consecutive summer, this time alongside Sam Darnold, Jayden Daniels, Jordan Love, Baker Mayfield, Trevor Lawrence and Jalen Hurts.
The sting is in the details. The No. 10 spot came down to a four-way tiebreaker among Caleb Williams, Darnold, Love and Daniels, settled by follow-up calls with general managers — Williams won on the strength of being the hardest to defend. Purdy wasn’t among the finalists. Fowler noted the position is deeper than a year ago, with 15 passers appearing on at least 30% of ballots, which means Purdy is drawing real support. It just isn’t converting into a ranking.
The voters aren’t dismissing him. “He has got two superpowers,” an NFC executive told Fowler. “Layering the ball and short-area quickness to stay alive. He’s elite in those two areas.” That’s a scout’s shorthand for the touch throws over the second level and the pocket escapes that defined San Francisco’s offense when it was rolling. The obvious drag on his candidacy is availability: injuries wrecked Purdy’s 2025, and voters were explicitly ranking who’s best right now. Joe Burrow slid out of the top three on durability concerns with a far longer track record of elite play; a quarterback coming off an injury-marred year was never going to jump the line.
Here’s the frame that matters for this roster: the 49ers went 12-5 last season with a battered lineup, beat Philadelphia on the road in the wild-card round and lost the divisional game to eventual champion Seattle. This is a team built to contend immediately, and the league’s evaluators are saying its quarterback belongs in the 11-to-15 range. Whether that gap is real — or just the residue of a lost season — is the question that decides how far this team goes.
Purdy gets his first chance to answer it when the 49ers open training camp later this month, with a healthy season the only argument the voters have said they’ll accept.
Original ranking: ESPN's 2026 top 10 quarterback rankings
