Week 11 is complete. We’ve already written about the Broncos’ big win over the Chiefs and Bears CB Nahshon Wright’s tribute to his former coach, so let’s put the finishing touches on our coverage from Sunday. Let’s go!
San Francisco 49ers
After an imperfect couple of months for 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, Sunday played out almost like a screenwriter scripted it for him. Or a trainer mapped out as the finishing touches on his rehab from a turf toe injury that’s followed Purdy since Week 1.
Let’s start with this: It was 7–0 before Purdy threw a pass, the result of a 98-yard kickoff return by Skyy Moore, followed immediately by a one-yard Christian McCaffrey touchdown run. On the next series, on a third-and-8, he threw to a schemed open Jauan Jennings. And, finally, two plays after that, he had the kind of throw that showed Purdy’s talent, where he looked left, held the safety, then dropped the ball into a hole between that safety and the corner to George Kittle for a 30-yard touchdown.
“Six weeks off in-season for me, mentally, it was, I want to jump back in and get to where I was,” Purdy told me after San Francisco’s 41–22 win on Sunday. “It’s part of the game where, as a quarterback, you want to get into a rhythm. So to have a couple plays before that, get some good completions, and some chunks of yards throwing the ball down the field, it felt good. And then to have Kittle to cap off the drive on an explosive down the field, that felt pretty good.
“I guess, mentally, it was, We’re back, I’m into a rhythm, and it’s gonna be good moving forward.”
With Mac Jones in for Purdy, and playing well in the starter’s absence, the questions arose on whether the team should stick with the former first-round pick over 2022’s Mr. Irrelevant—as if where the two were drafted was becoming relevant again.
It can be tough for any player to shake how he arrived in the league. That even goes for legends like Tom Brady, who was seen as a system quarterback by some for his first five-or-so years in the league, because he came in as a sixth-round pick in 2000.
Purdy’s always been a little different, though, in that he’s truly run his own race. Rather than using teams passing on him as motivation, he saw it as a chance to evaluate what he’d done wrong as a collegian. In this case, rather than seething at the idea that his job might be in jeopardy, he used the extra time he had to go back and look at tape from the past few years, “to wrap my mind around what it’s going to look like when I do come back. Like, Where do I need to be?”
The results of the deep dive affirmed that he needed, first and foremost, to heal.
“I saw decisive quarterback play, and good football, playing on rhythm, playing on time, and also being able to make plays off-schedule; that’s part of my game,” Purdy said. “I think just rehabbing the toe, I was like, I’m not going to go out there and play, and not be able to do what I can do. That’s what the whole decision with this toe thing was; I need to be able to play the way I play, moving around, off-schedule, that kind of thing.
“Just watching those games gave me confidence, that I was pretty close to feeling and looking like that.”
Meanwhile, Purdy was in every meeting, and at every game, outside of road trips to Los Angeles and Tampa after first re-injuring the toe against Jacksonville in Week 4. Knowing that there’s a natural flow to the season, he tried, as best he could, to stay in tune with all the ups and downs the offense was going through, which he figured would help him assimilate when it was time to come back.
“I was in tune to our game plan, and what we had going on, trying to help out Mac and Adrian [Martinez] in the quarterback room,” he said. “It felt good just to stay on top of it.”
And, as usual, Purdy was efficient and clean.
It helped, of course, that this one was never really in doubt. The Niners had a multi-possession lead for 48:32 of the 60 minutes played Sunday in Glendale. Naturally, that’ll make things easier. But that Purdy went 19-of-26 for 200 yards, three touchdowns and a 133.5 rating was, obviously, a big part of the afternoon being a breeze for San Francisco.
Even better, he came out of it feeling as good about his health as he did about his play. Which means now he and the Niners can move forward at 7–4 in the thick of the NFC playoff hunt.
“I felt great going into the game in terms of my toe, my health and everything,” Purdy said. “Percentage-wise, I don’t really know. I wouldn’t say I’m 100%—but pretty close. And I think just, overall, when I got out on the field, I didn’t think about my toe. I was just going through my reads, dropping back, playing quarterback. Scrambling and rolling out and everything, it felt fine. I didn’t think about it once. That was positive.”
The whole day was for a Niners team that’s been through a lot in 2025.
While I was on the phone with Purdy, I did ask a question that I think applies to him in a few different ways this particular year: Do you feel the need to do more now?
The idea is a common one after a quarterback scores a big second contract, the premise being that, over time, he’ll have to make it work with less talent around him, given the financial realities with such a deal. And beyond just that, the Niners’ injury situation has been dire enough where it’d make sense that Purdy would have to carry the team a little more.
Interestingly, he doesn’t see it that way.
“I don’t think it’s good to think that way,” he said. “I think, for me, it’s to go execute at a high level.
“If I can just play really good football at quarterback and not try to be Superman or anything like that, but do what Kyle [Shanahan] asks within how we play football on offense, then I think we’ll be just fine.”
Jaguars vs. Chargers stats
Most stunning stat of the week: The Jaguars had more than quadruple the rushing yards the Chargers did on Sunday (192–42) in Jacksonville’s 35–6 drubbing of Los Angeles.
I figured that had probably never happened to a Jim Harbaugh team before. And though I was wrong about that (you can look up the Chargers’ Week 15 game against the Bucs from last season on your own), it was pretty jarring to see Liam Coen’s crew dominate L.A. on the ground.
So what does it tell you?
It’s obvious. The Chargers’ identity runs through their offensive line. That’s where the investment has come since Harbaugh arrived two Januarys ago. It’s the team’s foundation. And regardless of how much the team tries to build depth at a position where that’s almost impossible (there aren’t enough tackles to go around), the loss of Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater was going to be impactful.
Now, the Chargers are 7–4, but hardly out of the playoff chase. But it’s tough to reimagine who you are as a team on the fly, and the losses at tackle seem to be forcing the Chargers to do that, which is bad luck.
Detroit Lions
For what it’s worth, I think the same sort of thing is impacting the Lions.
Detroit’s identity over the past three years was having one of the NFL’s very best lines, anchored by Penei Sewell and Taylor Decker, with Frank Ragnow as the pivotman. Ragnow’s gone, Decker’s aging and nicked up, and even Sewell’s had a couple of injuries. So as talented as the Lions are, when the line doesn’t play to its standard, it hurts the running and passing games.
Dallas Cowboys
On Monday night, you started to see the idea of the Cowboys’ defensive shuffle coming to life. Yes, the Raiders’ offensive line is leaky. Still, the interior pressure Dallas was getting on Geno Smith was unrelenting and unmistakable, and a reflection of the investment the front office made in paying Osa Odighizuwa, and trading for Kenny Clark and Quinnen Williams.
The Cowboys registered four sacks and 11 quarterback hits in Vegas. Nine of the 11 quarterback hits came from those three defensive tackles. Ask any quarterback, and they’ll tell you: Seeing that amount of pressure coming from the middle is a nightmare. And that’s the vision that Dallas had in trading for Williams, who knocked Smith to the ground five times in his Cowboys debut, to add to what they already had.
Add that to an offense that’s been a little spotty, but is dynamite when it’s firing on all cylinders, and the Cowboys (4-5-1) could be frisky down the stretch.
Buffalo Bills
Two leftover notes from the Bills’ 44–32 win over the Buccaneers.
The first is that second-year safety Cole Bishop, a 2024 second-round pick, is emerging as a star, consistently making game-shaping plays and playing at a breakneck pace that jumps off the screen. Over the past four weeks, he’s had 27 tackles (16 solo), two interceptions and six passes defensed, bringing the sort of impact that Sean McDermott’s gotten from the position over the years, and that the Bills used to get from Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer.
“Yeah, it’s huge, it is,” McDermott told me on Sunday. “Coming through my coaching career in Philadelphia, we always had Brian Dawkins. And I’m not comparing him to Brian Dawkins. I’m just saying the value of good safety play, how it can spark a defense and how it can really integrate into the makings of a good defense, Cole, he’s been making some of those plays. It’s been good to see. It will be important for us down the stretch.”
O.K., second note: McDermott got his 100th win (playoffs included) on Sunday. That puts him 23 behind Marv Levy for second in Bills history, which is really remarkable considering what he took over in 2017. When I raised it to him, he responded, “I told [PR chief] Derek [Boyko], I’m just trying to get one! Just been trying to get one since I came into this league.” And then, joking aside, he did want to show some appreciation for the situation he’s had in Buffalo, as so many have helped him turn the franchise around.
“I’m very grateful,” he said. “Very grateful.”
Only five other active coaches—Andy Reid, Mike Tomlin, Sean Payton, John Harbaugh and Pete Carroll—have hit the 100-win milestone (playoffs included). Sean McVay (96) and Kyle Shanahan (85), who became head coaches the same year McDermott did, will likely be next to get there.
Atlanta Falcons
The Falcons lost Michael Penix Jr. for the year, and Kirk Cousins will now return to the starting role. I remember saying this when they over-invested at quarterback in March and April of 2024: If they wind up with the long-term answer at the position, the rest won’t matter.
A year and a half in, it doesn’t look great.
The Falcons are 11–16 since signing Cousins to a four-year, $180 million contract and taking Penix with the eighth pick in the 2024 draft. The two have combined to complete 562-of-886 passes for 6,515 yards, 30 touchdowns, 22 interceptions and an 86.5 rating. That passer rating, by the way, would rank 26th this year and 27th in ’24. So they’re not winning, not getting great quarterback play, and now Penix, who had injury questions coming out of college, has a knee injury that could keep him out until the 2026 season.
Meanwhile, Cousins will likely be gone. He has a $10 million roster bonus due in March. It’s fully guaranteed now, and can only be offset by what another team pays him if he’s cut ahead of that due date (the fifth day of the 2026 league year, March 16). So, the decision here will be either to eat the $10 million, minus the offset, or pay him $45 million for ’26.
That means there’s a good chance that neither guy will be in uniform for opening day next year, after $100 million was spent on Cousins and a high draft pick (that may have saved the Falcons from trading their 2026 first-rounder to the Rams to get a second 2025 first-rounder to find more defensive help) was sunk into Penix, which is not ideal.
Los Angeles Rams
While we’re there, it’s wild that the Rams are here holding that first-rounder, which figures to be high in the order, with Atlanta at 3–7 and in a tricky spot at quarterback.
What makes it really interesting, though, is the prospect that it could in time lead to Matthew Stafford’s successor at quarterback.
The 2026 draft class isn’t expected to be very strong at the top. So the Rams could pass on using it and try to find a team looking to move up, and ask that team, maybe with a coach and GM fighting for survival, for a ’27 first-rounder. The ’26 quarterback class, headlined by Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza and Alabama’s Ty Simpson, doesn’t look great. The ’27 group could be, given some guys are expected to stay in school, and a few who won’t be draft-eligible until then.
Things can change, of course. But the extra pick gives the Rams plenty of flexibility to see all of that through.
Ja’Marr Chase suspension
The Ja’Marr Chase suspension is warranted. The NFL can’t let things like that happen, and there’s no way they can just take Chase at his word that his spitting at Jalen Ramsey was unintentional. Curbing on-field altercations also was a point of emphasis that was laid out to every team during training camp, making it even tougher for anyone to excuse.
The precedent here, of course, is Jalen Carter. Carter spit at Dak Prescott at the start of the season-opener in Philly. The Eagles’ DT was immediately tossed, before Philly’s defense played a single defensive snap. Since he missed the entire game, the league gave him time served, then fined him the equivalent of a game check.
That’s essentially the penalty Chase is getting. I can’t imagine Jordy Nelson, who’ll preside over Chase’s appeal, will overturn the suspension.
Brian Schottenheimer
Finally, regardless of what you think of him as a coach, Brian Schottenheimer’s been amazing in handling the aftermath of the tragic passing of Marshawn Kneeland in Dallas. And this postgame video shows how real, and raw, and authentic he’s been with his players through it all.
“We made him proud” 💙 pic.twitter.com/z2DGaiaO6K
— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) November 18, 2025
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Brock Purdy Says He’s ‘Back, Into a Rhythm and Moving Forward’ .
