Ever since Brock Purdy made his first NFL start against none other than Tom Brady last season, the 49ers quarterback has been compared to the legend thanks to where they both were drafted.
And as Purdy sets the league on fire in 2023, the similarities between the two only have become stronger for some. Brady has been watching the 23-year-old's success from afar and recently had nothing but praise for the young signal-caller.
"[The 49ers are] doing a great job, and I played him last year, and they've got a great team," Brady said on the latest "Let's Go!" podcast. "I played on a lot of great teams over the years, too, and what did we do? We controlled the line of scrimmage, we ran the ball well, we stopped the run, they rushed the passer. They've been playing with leads, and I give coach [Kyle] Shanahan a lot of credit, too, because he's done a great job.
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"You don't hear of guys like Brock Purdy until Brock Purdy's doing amazing things out on the field, so it's kind of a fun story and I hope it continues for him because he seems like he's a really humble young man, and he wants to go out there and do great things. I think the more you have that chip on your shoulder like he does, and there were not quite the expectations, it's nice to go out there and continue to prove people wrong."
Brady knows all about proving people wrong. After the New England Patriots selected him No. 199 overall in the 2000 NFL Draft, expectations for the sixth-round pick weren't exactly sky-high. But he went on to become the poster child for late-round success in professional sports as a 15-time Pro Bowl selection and five-time Super Bowl MVP with seven championship rings to his name.
Could Purdy be on the same path? Along with all of the milestones the last pick of the 2022 draft has reached so far in his young career, Mr. Irrelevant last season became the only quarterback making his first career start to defeat Brady in NFL history, handing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a dominant defeat in Week 14. And this season, some believe it very well could have been a passing of the torch.
FS1's Skip Bayless said this week Purdy is playing like an "early Tom Brady," while NFL draft expert Todd McShay sees similarities as well.
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"Early on [for Brady and the Patriots], that first Super Bowl, it was defense and being creative offensively, and I think that's kind of what Purdy was last year," McShay said this week on "The Ryen Russillo Podcast." "And now -- I'm not saying he's Tom Brady -- but I'm saying you see the evolving of a guy you draft late, you're not sure what you can get out of him. You wake up one day and you're like, 'Holy s--t. This guy's one of the 10 best quarterbacks in the league.' "
The parallels don't stop there, either. Like Purdy, Brady also shared a living space with roommates at the start of his career, he said, and he views the San Francisco star's decision in that regard as just another reason to root for him.
"Because of the world of promotion, self-promotion, there's a lot of hype built into a lot of things," Brady said. "He's kind of under the radar, but he just goes about his job, and I think a lot of people can really respect that in a lot of different industries.
"It's nice to have people that can show up every day, put the team first, do what they're asked to do, and he's done a good job of that. He's really exceeding a lot of people's expectations."