Brock Purdy slowly but surely is turning doubters into believers.
After the 49ers quarterback had yet another big game in San Francisco's obliteration of the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, FS1 host and noted Cowboys fan Skip Bayless compared Purdy to one of the greatest players ever to play the position, and even believes the 23-year-old could be one step ahead.
"It took me a while to come around to [Tom] Brady; it took about a year and a half because I was such a Joe Montana fan, and I kept saying, 'No, he doesn't have that big of an arm, and he's not that mobile.' And I'm looking at Purdy -- he doesn't even have Tom's arm," Bayless said Monday morning on "Undisputed." "He doesn't have Tom's height because Tom's a full 6-foot-4, and I don't know what we're giving this kid, 6-foot-1 to 6-foot-2-ish, but he is mobile. He can move in the pocket to create time to throw, and that throw he made to [George] Kittle for that first touchdown where he was on the move, it was a big time, National Football League, pro football throw. He made several of these.
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"My point is, he's early Tom Brady. He's on that arc. He is because he doesn't do anything wrong. I kept hearing last week, 'Well he only has five touchdown passes to zero interceptions.' Well now he has nine to zero. Is that good enough? He has started and finished 12 games in this league, he's 12-0 in those games. 12-0? It's impossible. You can say scheme, you can say [49ers coach] Kyle [Shanahan]. You can say talent. You can say all of the above. You still have to play the position at the highest level."
Before Brady was a seven-time Super Bowl champion and three-time NFL MVP, he was pick No. 199 in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft.
The Bay Area native rode the bench for nearly all of his rookie season as the New England Patriots stuck with their Pro Bowl quarterback Drew Bledsoe. Brady appeared in only one game that season, completing one pass in three attempts for six yards in a 34-9 blowout loss to the Detroit Lions.
San Francisco 49ers
Over the course of his 23-year career, though, Brady certainly proved himself, to say the least.
Twenty-two years after Brady's name was announced in the draft, Purdy had to wait until the very last pick in the 2022 draft to hear his name.
The No. 262 pick, aka Mr. Irrelevant, entered the league as San Francisco's third-string rookie quarterback behind former 49ers quarterbacks Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo. In Week 13 of last season, that all changed.
Purdy took over as the 49ers' starter and that hasn't changed since.
"He is way better than [Cowboys quarterback] Dak Prescott ever thought about being because he is unflappable. He is unflustered," Bayless continued. " … I'm saying, we have a wizard calling plays for a wizard 'cause this kid's a wizard. I've never seen anything like it. I thought Tua Tagovailoa was doing this with [Dolphins coach Mike] McDaniel in Miami, but this is a whole other level from that."
While Purdy has been nothing but successful since emerging as the starter under center for San Francisco, he has a long way to go to reach Brady status. At the very least, though, he's certainly on the right track.