TALE OF TWO QUARTERBACKS
MVP finalist Hurts, rookie Purdy to battle for Super Bowl berth
PHILADELPHIA — The lategame meltdowns stick in San Francisco.
Take the Super Bowl against the Chiefs after the 2019 season. The 49ers became the third team in Super Bowl history to cough up a 10-point lead in the second half and lose.
Or the NFC Championship Game last season against the Rams, when a 17-7 lead unraveled because of a dropped interception, a conservative fourth-down call and an interception on the final drive.
‘‘As you go back to last year, we were a couple of plays away from making it to the Super Bowl again,’’ receiver Deebo Samuel said. ‘‘What’s it going to take for us to get there? We just have to minimize the mistakes, and everybody has to be on their assignments.’’ Near perfection.
That’s a pretty heady task for any team, much less one headed to Philadelphia, where the cold, an MVP finalist and the top-seeded team in the NFC await. It’s going to get crazy loud — or is it crazy and loud? — at Lincoln Financial Field.
The 49ers say they’re ready. They have won 12 consecutive games, including seven in a row since rookie Brock Purdy, a seventh-round draft pick, took over at quarterback after Jimmy Garoppolo was injured.
The second-seeded 49ers have been on the brink of adding a sixth Super Bowl title for years, and their appearance Sunday in the NFC title game is their third in the last four seasons. The Eagles might not have been a preseason favorite to get here, but a series of bold moves — notably the acquisitions of receiver A.J. Brown, linebacker Haason Reddick, cornerback James Bradberry and safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson — have turned them into a team with a Super Bowl-or-bust outlook.
Want near perfection? The Eagles know something about that in Pro Bowl quarterback Jalen Hurts’ starts, with a 14-1 record in the regular season and a playoff victory against the Giants. Hurts is playing through the lingering effects of a sprained right shoulder suffered against the Bears that cost him two games. He is putting in overtime ahead of his biggest test of the season against the 49ers’ top-ranked defense.
‘‘It’s in his DNA to be here at all times working on his craft,’’ Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. ‘‘Whether that’s in the weight room, whether that’s in the training room, whether that’s in the film room, this guy is obsessed with getting better.’’
Hurts had some doubters heading into training camp, but he pretty much wiped out any concerns after a Week 1 victory against the Lions and kept piling up big numbers and wins to the point where he is an NFL MVP finalist.
All that’s keeping Hurts from a Super Bowl is the last pick of the draft last spring.
Maybe it’s more than just Purdy’s play — he has had a meteoric rise from ‘‘Mr. Irrelevant’’ to undefeated rookie quarterback in the NFC title game — that helps the 49ers. He has no memory of the Super Bowl collapse and played no role in the debacle against the Rams. Purdy just knows how to win. ‘‘He has a natural ability to play the position, and that’s why he’s fun to coach,’’ 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said. ‘‘Because when he does make mistakes and do things, he can see it, he can know why, we can see it and we can all understand it.’’