The San Francisco 49ers are 4-1 and sitting atop the NFC West, and two quarterbacks are responsible for their success.
Mac Jones led them to wins in Weeks 2, 3 and 5 against the New Orleans Saints, Arizona Cardinals, and Los Angeles Rams, respectively, and Brock Purdy went 1-1 against the Seattle Seahawks and Jacksonville Jaguars, respectively.
And while Purdy just signed a five-year, $265 million contract extension over the summer, Jones has outperformed him on the field, prompting some to question if there's a genuine quarterback controversy.
In his two appearances, Purdy has averaged 293 yards passing per game with four touchdowns, four interceptions, and an 85.8 passer rating, while Jones is averaging 302 yards passing per game with six touchdowns, one interception, and a 99.1 passer rating.
Though there's mounting speculation the growing of calls for Jones to remain the team's starter even when Purdy is healthy, general manager John Lynch addressed the rumors of any tension between his two QBs this week during an appearance on KNBR radio.
"I do wholeheartedly believe that Brock is nothing but happy for our team," Lynch said. "He's working his tail off to try to get back and I think we all feel blessed and fortunate that we found a guy to be our backup this year who can go in and play like a starter and earn us tough, hard-fought wins. Mac's doing a tremendous job. It's been fun.
“We've talked about the process he's gone through and you could see throughout the offseason, through training camp, the confidence built, and some of those innate abilities that we saw way back in college come to the forefront, and it's cool to see that happen on a big stage,” he added.
Lynch took things a step further and pulled back the curtain, so to speak, to how Purdy has handled watching his team go undefeated with his understudy.
"A cool quality about Brock Purdy is he's one of the most self-assured people in a very humble way," Lynch continued. "It's hard to explain, but I think it's one of the things that appealed to us. He's just very confident in his abilities, but he's just a good guy. He's got an incredible amount of humility."
Judging from Lynch's comments, even if Purdy wasn't a $53 million-per-year passer, his job would still be safe despite Jones' career renaissance.
2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.