The San Francisco 49ers posted a dominant 30-13 victory over the New England Patriots on Sunday, improving to 2-2 on the season and remaining undefeated at home.

This game had a much different tone than the 49ers’ Week 3 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, as San Francisco thrived on both sides of the ball for a strong all-around performance.

One change over the weekend appeared to be the number of deep shots the 49ers called up, as Brock Purdy averaged 10.7 yards per attempt and a whopping 19.2 yards per completion on the day, en route to throwing for 288 yards in the victory.

Purdy had five passes of more than 20 yards (one called back for a penalty) while connecting on deep balls with all three of his top receivers on a successful day in the air for the 49ers. Overall, he averaged 14.5 intended air yards per pass, easily leading the NFL in Week 4.

While the efficiency (15/27 passing) may not have been as high on the day, it was clear that San Francisco prioritized their downfield offense in the 30-13 win, where they ultimately had five scoring drives on offense.

What led to the number of deep shots on the day from Purdy?

“We caught them a couple of times on both plays in the quarterfinals and their safety was tight and that’s where the ball has to go,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said of the deep shots against Jennings and Samuel. “And Brock (Purdy) made two good throws and both guys came down with the play. Had a third chance which was incomplete, corner did well to stay on top. But I think versus it was all the same messaging.

Purdy had a similar message, pointing out that New England’s man-heavy coverage gave San Francisco the look they wanted to be aggressive.

“That’s the case for every game where we’re ready if they provide some coverage, then we’ve got a shot or an opportunity ready and we just have to execute and take advantage of it,” Purdy said. “And so for this game, there were a few plays where the safety was low and we had guys go deep with Deebo (Samuel Sr.) and JJ (Jauan Jennings).”

“For me, we talked about it on the sideline and I was a little aggressive about seeing that and letting it rip and trusting those guys to get underneath and make plays and that’s what they did. It was nice to be able to connect on those deeper routes and things like that and put that on tape and give us all some confidence moving forward with the deep ball.

Now it wasn’t all positive as Purdy had an interception on a deep ball intended for Brandon Aiyuk where he was late on a read on a botched coverage, which the quarterback acknowledged after the game.

‘Interception, BA (Brandon Aiyuk) over the middle of the field. I saw it early and went to run him, but I didn’t see Jabrill Peppers,” Purdy said. “He kind of fell off and got it. So it’s something I have to continue with in my progress and not be greedy. I think I pegged him two or three times, which is just not good as a quarterback. You go through your progress based on your hiccups and you read with your feet and I got greedy. I saw him across the middle and Jabrill made a good play.”

Still, there were a lot of positives from the day, with Purdy using his aggressiveness to connect on some big throws.

Those cross-court shots over the top have become more important as teams begin to try to take away many of the intermediate throws that San Francisco thrived with earlier in the Shanahan regime. So it’s up to the quarterback to make the right reads while maintaining that aggressiveness.

“I feel like this has been something we’ve been known for over the last few seasons, but people are cheating on us and they’re doing a good job of just exploiting certain routes and taking certain routes away,” Purdy said afterwards. “For us that is a good opportunity to adapt and also work on other things. Every team is different. They present a new challenge and all, but this week there was a lot of focus on men. They did a good job of directing everything back to the center of the field. They did a good job with it.”

While the 49ers as a whole need to be better at putting the ball into the end zone, Purdy has started the season strong statistically, as he leads the NFL in passing yards (1,130) while completing 68.9 percent of his completed passes and earned an average of 9.3. meters per attempt.

He’ll continue to try aggressively against the Arizona Cardinals in Week 5, who just gave up 42 points to the Washington Commanders, as the 49ers look to earn their first conference win of the year next weekend.