Purdy lands in the MVP field as 49ers fill out NFL midseason award lists

Brock Purdy is in the NFL’s midseason MVP field, and the 49ers are showing up all over the same awards roundup. That is the clearest sign yet that San Francisco’s first half is being judged through individual honors as much as team results.

NFL.com’s midseason awards list places Purdy among five MVP nominees, alongside Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence and Jaxon Smith-Njigba. The quarterback’s inclusion is the headline item, but it is not the only 49ers presence. Fred Warner is listed in the Defensive Player of the Year race, George Kittle appears on the Comeback Player of the Year list and Kyle Shanahan is named in the Coach of the Year group. The article’s frame is simple: San Francisco is not just winning games, it is sending multiple figures into separate award conversations.

That matters because this is a midseason snapshot, not an end-of-year result. The NFL Channel has held its Midseason Awards event for four years, and for the past two seasons the winners have been chosen by fan vote. The article says the final chance to vote is Sunday at 4 p.m. PT, with winners to be announced ahead of Sunday night’s Steelers-Bengals game. The official NFL honors, by contrast, are decided later by a 50-member Associated Press panel. In other words, the roundup is useful as a read on where the season stands, but it does not settle anything.

Purdy’s place in the MVP field is the strongest marker of how far his profile has risen. The article says his toughest competition appears to be Burrow and Allen, with Lawrence and Smith-Njigba also on the list. It also points to Purdy’s 107.4 passer rating in a 21-point win over Las Vegas on Sunday, noting that the performance still felt ragged by San Francisco standards. That detail says as much about the quarterback’s current bar as it does about the stat line itself: a game that would look excellent in most places can read merely ordinary when a team has come to expect more.

The 49ers’ spread across the other categories gives the roundup more weight than a single quarterback nod would. Warner’s listing in the defensive race follows a season in which he has already supplied the kind of impact plays that tend to register with award voters. Kittle’s appearance on the comeback list keeps his season in view after injury questions, and Shanahan’s inclusion in the coaching category reflects the broader view of San Francisco’s start. Taken together, those names show a team with enough production in multiple phases to show up on multiple ballots.

There is a useful contrast in how the article treats those nominations. Purdy is presented as the face of the MVP discussion, but the rest of the 49ers are not treated as afterthoughts. Warner is in the mix for a defensive award that usually rewards disruptive plays in the trenches and at the second level. Kittle is grouped with players being recognized for returning to form. Shanahan is in a coaching race that often turns on how well a staff has translated talent into weekly results. Each honor points to a different slice of the same team’s first half.

What the roundup does not do is turn those nominations into conclusions. The article repeatedly frames the group as nominees and says the midseason awards are still pending fan vote. That distinction is important, because it keeps Purdy’s MVP case, Warner’s defensive case, Kittle’s comeback case and Shanahan’s coaching case in the proper place: credible, current and unfinished.

The next checkpoint is fixed. NFL Channel’s midseason winners are scheduled to be announced before Sunday night’s Steelers-Bengals game, and San Francisco’s names will be part of that reveal whether or not they turn into trophies. For now, the 49ers have something narrower but still notable: four separate figures positioned in the league’s midseason honor picture.