If there's one player who has an eye for good quarterbacking, it's 49ers legend and Pro Football Hall of Famer Joe Montana.
With San Francisco one win away from securing the franchise's sixth Vince Lombardi Trophy, second-year quarterback Brock Purdy will lead the 49ers under center in Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday at Allegiant Stadium where he looks to silence his many critics by upstaging superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
Montana joined "The Rich Eisen Show" this week in Las Vegas, where he discussed Purdy's NFL ascension and why the doubt surrounding the young quarterback is misplaced.
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"I'm not sure what they're talking about, the guy's playing pretty good football and everybody's still doubting him," Montana told Eisen. "I just think that he understands this offense, understands the people around him. He doesn't force balls if he doesn't have to. But you can always tell when a guy is comfortable in an offense when he's playing like Brock's playing.
"Don't second-guess him, second-guess the draft. He's proof, [Tom] Brady's proof they haven't figured out how to draft. What's important, what isn't important. Because you just don't know who's going to make that transition. I don't know why people are second-guessing him."
Critics oftentimes label Purdy a "game manager," downplaying his performance season in which he was a finalist for the NFL MVP award, was named the NFC Pro Bowl starter and broke countless league and franchise records in large part because of the supporting cast around him.
Montana also joined the "Dan Patrick Show" this week where he offered his advice to Purdy ahead of the 24-year-old's first Super Bowl appearance and explained how Purdy's situation in coach Kyle Shanahan's offense compares to his under legendary coach Bill Walsh.
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"Don't do anything different than you've been doing," Montana said of his advice to Purdy. "I like what he has been doing, he's found a way to understand what that offense is about, and the people around him can only make him better. His job is to find a way to get the ball to those guys.
"That's typically how Bill's offense worked when we had Jerry [Rice] and John Taylor. John Taylor goes twice 90-plus [yards] in the [Dec. 11, 1989 49ers-Rams game]. I threw two seven-yard passes on a slant, but in the books, I got 190 yards of passing and two touchdowns."
Montana appears to subscribe to the belief that all signal-callers technically are "game managers" or "system quarterbacks," and he, a four-time Super Bowl-winning, first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback, is no different.
Purdy securing a win over the defending champion Chiefs on Sunday would go a long way toward silencing a large swath of his remaining doubters.