SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Brock Purdy hasn't run into many road blocks early in his career with the San Francisco 49ers as he's been one of the game's most efficient passers as a seventh-round rookie in 2022.
That's what has made his struggles against Mike Macdonald's defenses so glaring, highlighted by the way last season ended with losses to the Seattle Seahawks in a Week 18 showdown for the NFC West title and two weeks later in a divisional round loss.
The 49ers were outscored 54-9 in those two games with their high-powered offense unable to reach the end zone even once on 19 offensive possessions.
Purdy and the Niners (4-0) get a chance to reverse that trend on Sunday when they visit the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks (3-1) for the first time this season.
“They did a really good job against us with out-physicaling us and getting to the ball fast and flying around and closing the windows in the pass game and stuff,” Purdy said Thursday. “They did a really good job with all that. Obviously, for me it sucked how last year ended and not getting in the end zone and scoring and stuff like that. So for sure went back and watched some stuff this offseason. Sort of just like, ‘All right, what was it? How could I have played better? And what did I need to do?’ Sort of just being hard on myself in that regard. But, every game is new.”
Purdy comes into this week's meeting on an impressive roll with a league-leading 126.2 passer rating, 11 touchdown passes just one interception and no sacks. Performing like that against the Macdonald and the Seahawks is the next test.
Purdy first faced Macdonald in 2023 when he was defensive coordinator in Baltimore and threw four interceptions in a Christmas night loss to the Ravens that season.
The two have squared off five times since then with Macdonald the head coach for the Seahawks with Purdy shining only in the first meeting when the Seahawks' defense was still being established.
He was held to 159 yards in a loss in the second meeting that season before overcoming two interceptions in the season opener last season to lead a late game-winning drive. Then came the two tough losses to end last season.
Purdy had a 64.9 passer rating in those two games, averaging a paltry 4.7 yards per attempts, dropping his career passer rating against Macdonald defenses to 75.8 — about 30 points lower than his mark against the rest of the league.
“You have to understand that there’s a nature to the defense you’re playing where there is a bend-but-don’t-break mentality for them where you got to be disciplined,” offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak said. “Good quarterbacks got to find a way to balance those things out. When you look at teams who’ve had success against Seattle these past couple years, it’s guys like (Rams quarterback Matthew) Stafford. When Brock’s played good against them, it’s that. You get your shots when they’re there. You make the throw, but you’re patient when it’s not there and you keep playing.”
What makes the Seahawks so difficult to play against is that their front is so strong that they can stop the run without committing extra defenders. That allows them to keep their safeties deep to take away big plays.
Seattle has allowed the fewest explosive plays in the league since the start of last season, while also leading the league in yards per carry allowed.
“When they’re aggressive, they’re very rarely irresponsible,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said. "It’s real tough to get big plays on them. I think they’ve been number one in the league two years in a row in that, whether it’s run or pass game. They make you work for everything down the field. Then they’ve got a lot of good players out there. When you have to take that many plays to go on a scoring drive, they’ve got a lot of guys that can create some stuff and make some bad stuff happen.”
The Seahawks know they are in for a challenge against Purdy as well with his improvement in the pocket this season a notable difference. Purdy has done a good job avoiding pressure when it comes and turning those into big plays either by scrambling or throwing it downfield.
He hasn't been sacked once — the first time in 21 seasons a team allowed no sacks in the first four games — as Purdy's ability to avoid negative plays has been key to success on offense this season.
“I’d have a hard time underrating him,” Macdonald said. "He’s a hell of a player. He can throw at all three levels. He throws on time. He throws it into windows with timing that makes it hard to defend. A big part of his game that he deserves a lot of credit is his competitiveness, his athleticism, and playmaking ability as the down extends.”
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San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) rolls out during the first half of an NFL football game against the Denver Broncos in Santa Clara, Calif., Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Justine Willard)
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy speaks at a news conference after an NFL football game against the Denver Broncos in Santa Clara, Calif., Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Kelley L. Cox)
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) throws a pass during the first half of an NFL football game against the Denver Broncos in Santa Clara, Calif., Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
OSLO, Norway (AP) — The South African-born jurist and former U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay, who is currently an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her efforts to promote peace and international law.
Pillay’s work “is a source of hope and inspiration to all those who seek to bring about a more peaceful world,” said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, in announcing her win in Oslo, Norway.
Her win is sure to be seen as a high-profile rebuke to U.S. President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have both rejected the findings of a U.N. commission she led that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Both leaders also have been highly critical of the institutions where Pillay has worked.
While her work has been global in scope, criticism often has been fiercely local, notably in places like Israel and in apartheid-era South Africa as she and peers took on some of the world’s most painful and sensitive legal issues and most vulnerable populations.
Pillay, 85, received the news while attending the Nuremberg Forum, a gathering to discuss international law in Nuremberg, Germany, the location of the trials of Nazi war criminals that helped lay the foundations of international law.
“Firstly, at this venue, your applause means a great deal to me,” she said to a standing ovation. “You know, you don’t want to receive an award, prize or anything unless the public agrees that you deserve this.”
And joking, she added: "But being a lawyer and a judge, I still want to verify this information.”
Pillay chaired the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, which was created by the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council. The commission a year ago concluded Israel was responsible for genocide in Gaza with a specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.
The commission also found that the Israeli president, prime minister and former defense minister "have incited the commission of genocide.” Israel, which has refused to cooperate with the commission since it was established in 2021, has strenuously denied the charges.
Pillay has repeatedly rejected accusations from critics who accused her of antisemitism or allegedly turning a blind eye to the Hamas attacks in Israel.
In an interview with the AP last year, she recalled how she worked closely with some Jewish lawyers in the fight against apartheid in her native South Africa and was invited to Israel as the U.N. rights chief from 2008 to 2014.
Pillay’s win brings renewed attention to U.S. President Donald Trump’s ongoing feud with the International Criminal Court. The Trump administration already has sanctioned 13 of the ICC’s staff members, among them key prosecutors and nine judges including the court’s Japanese President Tomoko Akane.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has launched what he called a “sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court.”
In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month, Trump called the court an “out of control institution” and an “anti-American tribunal with no jurisdiction” over the U.S. as he urged member states to quit the “rogue institution immediately.”
There are fears the court as a whole could be sanctioned, a move that could seriously hamper its ability to mete out justice.
The Norwegian committee said it sought to strengthen international law at a time of conflict.
Watne Frydnes said the award was a message to those seeking to undermine "the international rules based system and the institutions.”
“At a time when the number of wars and conflicts is rising, and when judges and institutions of international law are under political attack, the Nobel Committee wishes to issue a reminder that the ability to resolve conflicts without force or violence is dependent on the international rule of law,” the committee wrote in a news release.
“An international legal system in which war criminals are held to account and the victims of abuse see justice served is a precondition for a peaceful world.”
Pillay is currently serving as an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice, the highest court of the United Nations, in the ongoing genocide case against Myanmar.
When countries do not have a national on the court’s permanent, 15-judge panel, they can appoint an expert of their choice. Gambia, which launched the proceedings in 2019, selected Pillay when the country accused Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya minority group.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo received nominations for 287 candidates for this year’s prize, with just over a quarter of them organizations. Experts say the committee typically focuses on the durability of peace, the promotion of international fraternity and the quiet work of institutions that strengthen those goals.
Last year, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in the South American nation, winning recognition as a woman “who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.”
Machado gave Trump her Nobel medal shortly after the United States ousted then-President Nicolás Maduro. But it was largely a symbolic gesture: the Nobel Committee has said the honor itself cannot be transferred.
Nominations can be made by a select group of people and organizations, including heads of state or politicians serving at a national level, university professors, directors of foreign policy institutes, past Nobel Prize recipients and members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee itself.
Four of this year's Nobels were announced earlier this week. The Nobel for medicine went to three scientists whose work led to a tool that uses light to help unravel how the brain works. The physics award recognized a scientist’s efforts to demystify a rare group of neutrinos. The chemistry prize recognized two scientists for untangling mysterious mirror images in molecules, a discovery that has been used to develop countless drugs.
Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson won the literature prize Thursday for “bold and inventive” works that fuse the classical and the modern and blur the boundaries of poetry and prose.
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced Monday.
The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million), whether for an individual, small group of laureates or organization.
Dazio reported from Berlin and Lewis reported from Stavanger, Norway.
AP Nobel Prizes: https://apnews.com/hub/nobel-prizes
FILE - U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, center, visits the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, in Jerusalem, Feb. 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File)
FILE - Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaks during a press conference, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Oct. 18, 2012. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
FILE - United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, center, visits Al- Daraj Elementary Co-ed UNRWA school in Gaza City, Feb. 10, 2011. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)
The Chairman of the Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, announces the Nobel Peace Prize 2026 at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway, Friday, Oct. 9, 2026. (Javad Parsa/NTB Scanpix via AP)
The Chairman of the Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, announces Navanethem Pillay as the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize laureate at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway, Friday, Oct. 9, 2026. (Javad Parsa/NTB Scanpix via AP)
FILE - U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights South African Navanethem Pillay prior to the 23rd session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, May 27, 2013. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)
FILE - U.N. human rights chief Navanethem Pillay prior to the opening of a session of the Human Rights Council at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 18, 2012. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)
FILE - A Nobel diploma and medal are displayed, Dec. 8, 2020, during a ceremony in New York. (Angela Weiss/Pool Photo via AP, File)
