Playing Hurt

I winced last night as young Brock Purdy again led the San Francisco 49ers to victory, 21-13 over the Seattle Seahawks. I felt the 22-year-old's pain as he "toughed it out" (in Coach Kyle Shanahan's words), throwing an "unbelievable" 11 straight completions to start the game, and seeming to get stronger as the violent contest went on.

Purdy was playing with an injury to his oblique, the muscle that runs on the side of your body from the ribs to the pelvis. As former Niner All-Pro offensive tackle Bubba Paris (one of the team's best post-game analysts) explained, an oblique is one of the most painful in football. "It hurts to even cough or laugh," Paris remarked.

After the game, which secured the 49ers' Western Conference championship, Shanahan said Purdy's gutsy performance had taken him to a new level of team “respect."

"Welcome to the NFL kid," the team's older, more battered players told Purdy.

Brock Purdy's willingness to play hurt yesterday underlines my ambivalent feeling about football (a game my brother and I played in high school). Yes, other sports take a physical toll on their players -- Warriors star Steph Curry has just been sidelined for weeks. But NFL football is uniquely violent and its casualties are routine.

Still, I get a thrill from the sport, a kind that doesn't quite match my celebratory feelings about the SF Giants' or the Warriors' triumphs. I wrote about "The Catch" and the 49ers' first Super Bowl victory, with Bill Walsh and Joe Montana at the helm. As I wrote in Season of the Witch, that victory helped raise San Francisco from its deep gloom after the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk and a string of other civic tragedies.

Part of the thrill I get from watching football is admittedly primordial --- there's no denying it IS a gladiator sport. There was a satisfying brutality to how the 49ers' relentless defense (under the brilliant -- and handsome -- DeMeco Ryans) absolutely smothered the Seahawks. But there's also an elegance, a balletic beauty to the game. And the speed and strategy behind football is unmatched.

Maybe I like pro football -- again -- not only because the new 49ers are fun to watch, but because I play hurt too. Most of us do, especially at my "team's" advanced age. Nearly everyone I know has something physically wrong with them. They go about their lives, even though their injuries are sometimes life-threatening.

Yes, it sucks that Brock Purdy felt compelled to play hurt last night. And yes, he did it for his team's respect, to earn more professional status, to make more money -- and for his own sense of fun and glory. And maybe to earn more of his father's love and admiration. In other words, for all the reasons we play to win.

Forty-Niner Coach Kyle Shanahan and QB Brock Purdy