{"id":204465,"date":"2025-07-13T17:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T17:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/204465\/"},"modified":"2025-07-13T17:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T17:49:10","slug":"49ers-great-joe-montana-endorses-brock-purdys-record-payday-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/204465\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers’ great Joe Montana endorses Brock Purdy’s record payday"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATELINE, Nev. \u2014 Joe Montana strolled in relative anonymity among the American Century Championship gallery<\/a> at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course.<\/p>\n

It was both wistfully nostalgic and picturesque to see him and his wife, Jennifer, walking up the 10th fairway Friday following, of course, former 49ers teammate Jerry Rice<\/a>, who was playing with Tony Romo and Brian Urlacher.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you guys know who this is? He\u2019s pretty good,\u201d Romo, a former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and current CBS analyst, announced to a few fans as he put his arm around Montana.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you throw a ball, and he\u2019d see it before everybody else,\u201d Romo continued. \u201cHim and (Tom) Brady, the greatest of all time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon after, Montana took a moment to dole out a compliment to current 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy.<\/p>\n

Montana endorsed the 49ers\u2019 record-setting, $265 contract they awarded two months ago to Purdy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, well they have to. I mean, it\u2019s not like he hasn\u2019t done the job,\u201d Montana said in an exclusive interview with the Bay Area News Group. \u201cHe\u2019s been fairly consistent. He had a lot of injuries. Those are all the tough to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montana, who delivered the 49ers\u2019 first four Super Bowl victories in the 1980s, has kept up with Purdy\u2019s career ascent on the 49ers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe plays within himself,\u201d Montana said. \u201cUsually you see in the second year \u2014 which he didn\u2019t really do much \u2014 is try so much to be better and, \u2018Oh I can do this now.\u2019 You see a lot of that from the first-year wonders, and you think, what are they going to do next year, and they think they can do everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe played within himself and did what he\u2019s supposed to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four years ago, Montana was skeptical<\/a> about the 49ers\u2019 commitment to Jimmy Garoppolo, who signed a $137.5 million deal after a five-game stint in 2017.<\/p>\n

Purdy, the 262nd and last pick of the 2022 draft, reached the NFC Championship Game as a rookie, then recovered from elbow surgery to set a franchise record with 4,280 passing yards in 2023 en route to the Super Bowl. Last season, Purdy and the injury-ravaged 49ers plummeted to a 6-11, last-place finish.<\/p>\n

Montana acknowledged how injuries and defensive deficiencies roiled the 2024 NFC title defense, but he shrugged off all that.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can look over anybody\u2019s teams, even our years, it didn\u2019t matter. We all had ups and downs,\u201d Montana said. \u201cIt\u2019s just about coming back from where they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

This offseason, although the 49ers paid Purdy, they also bid farewell to over 20 free agents and will rely on young reinforcements to their defense. To that, Montana also shrugged, saying: \u201cAll the teams are making changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montana noted it\u2019s been \u201cmany moons\u201d since he played on the celebrity golf circuit here, even hosting his own tournament some 20 years ago. He and former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice will serve as co-chairs of next month\u2019s U.S. Amateur at The Olympic Club.<\/p>\n

Montana\u2019s cameo in Rice\u2019s gallery during Friday\u2019s opening round<\/a> wasn\u2019t exactly planned.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were coming out of hospitality and he happened to be teeing off,\u201d Montana said. \u201cWe were trying to find him. Perfect timing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing has changed in that regard over 40 years.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: July 13, 2025 at 5:30 AM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATELINE, Nev. \u2014 Joe Montana strolled in relative anonymity among the American Century Championship gallery at Edgewood Tahoe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,1926,2644,1443,7,1921,41909,929,6,1161,252,2624,2623,7910,1929,1930,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-204465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-49ers","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-bay-area","10":"tag-brock-purdy","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-inside-sports","14":"tag-lake-tahoe","15":"tag-latest-headlines","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-san-francisco","18":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","19":"tag-sanfrancisco","20":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers","21":"tag-santa-clara","22":"tag-santa-clara-county","23":"tag-south-bay","24":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114847191167387807","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}