You could be forgiven for looking at 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy's Pro Football Reference page and finding nothing amiss with his 2023 season.
Purdy, after all, has yet to miss a game this year for an 8–3 San Francisco team. He’s the NFL’s eighth-leading passer with 2,871 yards, a number that measures durability as much as acumen.
However, this obscures the fact that Purdy had major elbow surgery on March 10 after being injured in the 49ers’ 31–7 loss to the Eagles in the NFC championship on Jan. 29. He was expected to miss time in the regular season, but didn't.
Why? Good, solid sleep, the Iowa State product told Matt Barrows of The Athletic.
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“Going into surgery, the doctor was telling me the importance of sleep,” Purdy said. “My teammates, guys who had been through injuries like mine, were telling me, ‘Dude, sleep is going to be your best friend.’ And so I made it a priority. That was No. 1 on my list.”
Purdy told Barrows he gets nine hours of sleep each night, using a rigid method of powering off his body. He puts on special glasses to filter out blue light at 6 p.m., puts his phone away an hour before bed, reads while wearing the glasses for an hour, and tries to go to sleep at 9 p.m.
"I have energy. I’m attentive during meetings," Purdy said of his football life pre- and post-sleep management. "It’s a real difference, I think."
