Brock Purdy and Christian McCaffrey have big night against Colts “McCaffrey, who racked up 117 yards on 21 carries, surpassed 1,000 rushing yards for the season, the fifth time he has done it in his career.”
The 49ers want you to believe they don’t need a defense
“The positives for that group were that CJ West and Alfred Collins were put in increased roles, and both came up with monumental plays. West, at least, looked constantly disruptive, and I will be watching his sack through a double team a half-dozen more times.
Upton Stout, too, looked tremendous. He had two elite reps against Josh Downs tonight.
And Dee Winters was rewarded with a score for a high-IQ baiting of Rivers on an “Orlando” audible he’d already called earlier. He’s been the 49ers’ defensive player of the year.
Is that enough, though? Is getting Yetur Gross-Matos back, and having a defensive end group of him, Bryce Huff, Sam Okuayinonu, Keion White and their young defensive tackle group enough to survive in the playoffs? With a weak, ailing middle linebacker (or a veteran off the street in Eric Kendricks) and a secondary no one trusts behind it?“
Brock Purdy throws five TDs as 49ers outgun Colts in 48-27 scoreboard bonanza (paywall)
“Colts fans began to filter out with a little more than four minutes left in regulation, paused for a late Purdy interception, then proceeded to leave after Rivers tossed a pick-six to 49ers linebacker Dee Winters that clinched the final outcome.”
Meet Siran Neal: How the 49ers’ most underrated player emerged this season (paywall)
“It’s basically like driving a car,” Neal said. “Just keep looking two cars ahead of you. And keep your foot on the gas.”
Neal has 14 tackles on kick coverage this season, as well as helping clear a path for others.
“His name doesn’t always pop up, but man, those are huge plays in a game and that outside gunner it’s a really thankless and tough job,” 49ers general manager John Lynch said on his weekly KNBR radio show recently. “I think it’s the hardest job, outside of quarterback, in all of football. It is brutal out there.”
Has 49ers’ Robert Saleh rebounded back into head coach talks?
“To that end, Saleh has continued to adapt his scheme. He has skewed away from rushing four and playing Cover 3 behind it, opting to play Cover 4 at the second-highest rate in the NFL (22.4% of snaps) and with two-high safeties the sixth most in the league (50.9%). (In 2019, Saleh’s Niners played Cover 4 on 17.4% of opponent dropbacks, with two-high safeties on 37.8% of snaps.)
The idea is to force opposing offenses to execute long drives where more snaps increase the possibilities of a mistake. San Francisco has allowed the fourth-fewest explosive plays (passes of 20-plus yards or rushes of 10-plus yards) in the league.“
Brock Purdy throws five TDs as 49ers outgun Colts in 48-27 scoreboard bonanza (paywall)
“The game initially appeared like it might belong to the team that last had the ball, but a costly kickoff return fumble by the Colts in the second quarter helped the 49ers gain separation. Safety Ji’Ayir Brown punched the ball out, and tight end Jake Tonges recovered the fumble. The Niners scored six soon thereafter.
The 49ers then added another touchdown to open the second half. The Colts won the coin toss but elected to receive. They apparently wanted Rivers to get the ball first.“
49ers reflect on difficult journey to the postseason, look ahead to the playoffs
“I remember starting this offseason, bringing the guys over to my house back in OTAs and all the vets, guys that have been here for three or four years,” Shanahan said. “There were always guys who, every time we’ve gone to OTAs, it’s been all about trying to get to a Super Bowl, trying to win a Super Bowl, and I wanted to make sure that we didn’t really talk that way this year. We needed to focus on just trying to be the best team we could be and we’ll see what happens. That’s kind of been our motto all year, and I was just so proud that I actually now, last night, could congratulate them and actually talk about the playoffs because they are in that, they got in there, and now it’s time to position ourselves to try to do something special in that.”
Shanahan wanted to implement that mindset based on the lessons learned from 2020, which was another season where the 49ers were coming off a Super Bowl but wound up with six wins. Injuries sunk that team’s chances and crushed player morale, which is something Shanahan wanted to avoid.
“I wanted guys to just know like you can’t always look at it that way (Super Bowl or bust),” Shanahan said. “Like if you do, a couple bad things happen, a couple injuries happen and you can get very deflated. I wanted guys to just focus on being the best they can and earning the right to talk that way and those guys did that. They earned to get in the playoffs and now we’ll see what we can do in it.”
That strategy has worked for the 49ers, who have seen their one-game-at-a-time approach build a team that could wind up being tough to beat once the postseason begins.
“I think that was awesome that he did that because the last couple of years, the culture and the teams that we’ve had, that was a realistic goal to go attack the first seed, go make it deep into the playoffs, go make it to the Super Bowl, win it,” Purdy said. “Like those are great goals and realistic. This year, I think it was just really cool for him to understand our team, where we’re at, the turnover and all that kind of thing and being real with the older guys that have been here. “And the challenge of, ‘Hey, man, we’ve got to win some gritty games early in the year, in the middle of the season, and then late in the year, and see where we’re at when it’s all said and done.’
