Now, if they look sluggish out of the gate, or for an extended period again next Sunday, maybe I’ll go back on this. But what I saw against the Green Bay Packers—on a sloppy track at Levi’s Stadium and with the rain coming down—illustrated two things about this San Francisco team we hadn’t necessarily seen before.
The first would be that the 49ers didn’t seem to have their A game Saturday night. There were extenuating circumstances that led to that, and yet, they found a way to get through it, which is significant for a team that hasn’t always reacted well to playing on someone else’s terms.
The second is that, yes, San Francisco finally came from behind late, with the 24–21 win being the first game in Kyle Shanahan’s seven years as coach where the 49ers won a game after trailing by seven points or more entering the fourth quarter. (They were 0–30 in such situations going into Saturday’s game.)
“Earlier this year, we played some really close games,” quarterback Brock Purdy told me over the phone postgame. “We’ve had opportunities to finish at the end, and we’ve fallen short. Tonight, really, in all aspects, we needed the defense to get a stop. They did. [The special teams] got their kicker to miss, and then we had an opportunity to get up and go up. For us, it was like, .
“We have too many good guys, too many good players and too good of a team chemistry to not be able to pull through.”
Finally, the 49ers did. And as Purdy broke it down to me, the biggest key he could pinpoint was how Shanahan and the coaches, in the driving rain and with a hot Green Bay team playing inspired ball, went back to the basics.
Yes, the weather had something to do with that. But more so, it was the adjustment everyone had to make in the first quarter after losing Deebo Samuel on his second catch of the game. Samuel went down fighting for more yardage; he was evaluated for a concussion and cleared; but he tweaked his left shoulder (the same one he injured in Week 6) along the way, and it was bad enough to where he came out for the second half in street clothes.
“Going into the game … in the run game, we actually had Deebo involved pretty heavily,” Purdy says. “When he went down, it’s like, . Ray-Ray [McCloud III] came in. JJ [Jauan Jennings] played his position a couple of times. Those were the things that were a little different. Deebo, obviously screens and the quick game, you give him the ball, he makes explosive plays.
“When he’s not playing, it’s tough to get those plays, but at the same time we have playmakers like George [Kittle] and BA [Brandon Aiyuk] and JJ and Christian [McCaffrey].”
When it mattered most, everyone stepped up, again, not trying to trick or deceive Green Bay, but instead coming right at the Packers with core plays.
“We had gone through a lot of plays throughout the game that we had dialed up going into the game,” Purdy says. “At the end, we were like, . Sure enough …”
They were.
On a third-and-5 from the 49ers’ 47-yard line, Purdy converted with a strike into a tiny window to Aiyuk (“He did a great job getting inside leverage,” the QB says). Two plays later, Purdy found Chris Conley, with Samuel out, on an out-cut the QB knew the vet had run well all year for 17 yards. There was a catch and run to Kittle after that and a 9-yard scramble for Purdy, when the throw to McCaffrey he anticipated wasn’t there. Plus the quarterback had to bounce the play back outside with the pocket clogged with Packer rushers.
And, finally, there was McCaffrey cutting back and bursting through untouched for the go-ahead, 6-yard score, on a staple short-yardage play that preceded the defense clinching (with the rush chasing Jordan Love from the pocket and leading to a diving pick by Dre Greenlaw).
Of course, a lot of it wasn’t the least bit pretty on a night that wasn’t, either. But it did show the Niners had a couple of clubs in their bag that folks on the outside doubted they would.
Which is a pretty good sign for where the team is going into its third consecutive NFC title game, with losses the past two years coming when something went awry—a dropped pick two years ago, and Purdy’s injury last year—and the 49ers couldn’t reset fast enough.
All of which only makes them well aware of the opportunity in front of them.
“Last year happened,” Purdy says. “It sucked. We all thought we had a team to go all the way and do it. We didn’t get an opportunity to. Now, we’re back. It’s been a quick year. We’re all excited for this opportunity. We weren’t trying to think too far in the future. We knew, Green Bay coming in, it was going to be a good game. To be able to pull through at the end like that was huge. Now for us to now focus on the NFC championship.
“We’re all drooling over this opportunity.”
And, after how last night went, San Francisco is more ready for it than ever before.
