Let’s start with what this column is not about.
Namely that the coaching-quarterback combination of San Francisco’s Kyle Shanahan and Brock Purdy is going to become the next Bill Belichick and Tom Brady of New England. More specifically, that this is a prediction that six Vince Lombardi Trophies, 17 divisional titles, Purdy developing into the greatest quarterback the sport has ever known and Shanahan being feted as an all-time coaching innovator with his own line of hooded sweatshirts is en route.
Those standards are absurd. They would have been absurd back in 2001 when Brady, the late-round draft pick who few, if any, believed could even be a viable NFL starter took the field for Belichick, who still had plenty to prove after failing to get out of his own way earlier in his career.