The 31st annual “Quest for Six” begins on Sunday, as the San Francisco 49ers head east to take on the NFC East champion Philadelphia Eagles.
It’s a return to the place of one of the plethora of playoff heartbreaks of the last decade and a half for the 49ers, with the Eagles defeating the quarterback-less 49ers 31-7 in the 2022 NFC Championship Game.
The 49ers will be with a quarterback on Sunday, but it might be who they’re without that could be the story, with Trent Williams and Ricky Pearsall’s status
up in the air as of Thursday night.
But injuries are nothing new to the 2025 49ers as they enter the playoffs once again. These are the numbers to know for Sunday’s playoff matchup between the 49ers and Eagles:
70.5
The Eagles score a touchdown on 70.5 percent of red zone trips, the best rate in the league.
But some context is needed to understand why Philadelphia is so good in the final fifth of the field. While Philadelphia is elite at scoring inside the red zone, getting there is a problem all of its own for the Eagles’ offense. Philadelphia’s average drive lasts just 5.8 plays, good for 23rd in the league.
With their drives among the shortest in the league, Philadelphia struggles with getting into the red zone. It’s 44 red-zone entries rank 28th in the league, placing them in a rare group among playoff teams. The Eagles are one of two teams in the playoffs to rank in the bottom 12 of red zone attempts, with only the 8-9 Panthers joining them with 45 attempts.
But when Philadelphia gets down the field, they’re tough to stop. They have only 31 red zone touchdowns, which ties them for 16th in the league with Atlanta, but with so few attempts, that boosts their percentage to the best in the league.
And when the Eagles get in the red zone, they like to target their tight ends, Dallas Goedert specifically. Of their 33 red zone touchdowns, 17 have come through the air, and 11 of those 17 have gone to tight ends, 10 to Goedert and one to Grant Calcaterra. With the 49ers’ hodgepodge of a linebacker corps and their safeties coverage issues, that could make the Eagles extra dangerous in the final 20 yards of the field on Sunday.
While the 49ers’ defense allows some long drives on average, 6.4 plays allowed is the sixth-longest average, and 34.7 yards per drive is fourth-most, they have done a better job at preventing touchdowns in the red zone with a 53.8 red zone touchdown rate ranking 12th in the league. Sunday may come down to whether the 49ers can stop the Eagles from getting into the red zone, because if Philadelphia can consistently move the ball against San Francisco’s defense, the final 20 yards of the field shouldn’t be too tricky for that offense to navigate.
22
The Eagles’ defense ranks 22nd in rushing yards allowed per game, giving up an average of 124.4 yards.
That places Philadelphia firmly in the bottom half of the league, and that alone is an indicator of the type of game Christian McCaffrey (and the 49ers) could have on Sunday.
McCaffrey had his least productive full season in terms of yards per attempt since his rookie season, when he averaged 3.7 yards per attempt. While he had nearly 200 more carries in 2025 than he did in his rookie season, McCaffrey only averaged 3.9 yards per attempt, resulting in 1,202 yards, the third-most he’s had in a season in his career. But most of that production this season came against bottom-half run defenses, which is exactly what the Eagles are.
The 49ers played 10 games in the regular season against teams ranking in the top-half of the league in terms of rushing yards allowed per game, while they played seven games against teams in the bottom-half. In the ten games against top-half teams, McCaffrey averaged nearly 17 rushing attempts per game, but only managed to average 55 yards, suitable for a 3.25 yards per attempt average.
Oh, and all five of the 49ers’ losses can be found in those 10 games as well.
But on the other side of the coin, McCaffrey has dominated the lesser run defenses of the league. In the seven games against bottom-16 run defenses, averaging 91.14 yards on 20 attempts per game, averaging 4.59 yards per attempt, well above his season average, with the 49ers not losing a single one of those games.
Philadelphia’s defense is among the best in the league, but its most obvious weakness comes in the run game. The 49ers are going to need a classic Christian McCaffrey performance on Sunday to keep the Eagles’ defense honest and keep the offense two-dimensional. If it gets to a situation where Philadelphia can sit on the pass, that could spell trouble for San Francisco’s offense.
