Nick Bosa slams Brock Purdy critics and hails quarterback as ‘the best game manager in the league’ – after he led the San Francisco 49ers to a Super Bowl match-up against the Chiefs

Nick Bosa has blasted critics of Brock Purdy following the 49ers’ 17-point comeback victory in the NFC Championship game against the Detroit Lions, in which he was named the ‘Mr. Irrelevant’ as now the ‘best game manager in the league.’

Purdy got off to a rough start to Sunday night’s game, as the Lions led the 49ers 24-7 after the first two quarters at Levi’s Stadium. But a spark in the Niners’ second half, led by Purdy, meant the franchise’s second-year quarterback finished the game with 267 passing yards for a touchdown, an interception and a 64.5 percent completion percentage (20 of 31) .

That’s not bad for a signal caller trailing by two scores and a field goal at the half.

When asked for his thoughts on Purdy “getting going” in the second half, Bosa – a 49ers defensive end – told CBS Sports’ Josina Anderson: “I don’t pay much attention to the media, but who’s also talking s*** about brock purdy…what have you got now?

“What message has Brock sent in games like this?” Anderson replied. “He’s the best game manager in the league,” Bosa said without hesitation.

Brock Purdy, 24, finished with 267 yards passing, a TD and INT along with 48 yards rushing

San Francisco pulled off its fourth-ever comeback from trailing by 17 points or more in a conference title game, thanks to some big plays by Purdy and foul mistakes by the Lions (14-6), including two failed fourth downs from field goal range. Detroit failed to reach the first Super Bowl in franchise history.

“We don’t go out like that,” coach Kyle Shanahan said of the mentality at halftime. “Guys didn’t want today to be the last day. We’ve put ourselves in a hole. They played like that in the second half and we were able to bounce the ball the right way and we made up for what we did in the first half.”

After being asked if he could lead a comeback, Purdy has now done it twice in as many weeks. He sparked a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter to beat Green Bay last week and then made an even bigger comeback against the Lions.

Purdy and the 49ers will next face the reigning Super Bowl champions in the Kansas City Chiefs

He finished with 48 yards rushing on top of his 267 passing yards and touchdown, thanks to a pair of 21-yard scrambles. Now the final pick of the 2022 draft starts in the Super Bowl against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.

“All he’s done since he’s been here is play at an elite level,” running back Christian McCaffrey said. ‘Everything starts with him. We’re lucky he’s our quarterback. It picks up a lot of heat for no reason.”

McCaffrey had two TD runs and little-used backup Elijah Mitchell scored on a 3-yard run to make it 34-24 with 3:02 to play as the Niners got over the hump of the conference title game came after losing the past two seasons.

“There’s been unfinished business for a while, man. Our team has been prepared for this for a long time,” Shanahan said. “It’s taken a long year to get to this point, and we did it today. It was hard at first, but the character we have on our team, the type of guys we have, we can’t wait to get to Vegas, man.”