They don’t ask how, they ask how many.
It was ugly. It was painful. It was expected at moments – hello, Jake Moody. And at the end, it was a completely unexpected moment that sealed the game. But somehow, someway, the San Francisco 49ers left Seattle on Sunday with a win.
Brock Purdy was perfect on a drive where the 49ers had to score with a big boost from our third star from Sunday on a 45-yard completion. But it’s the unlikeliest of names who clinched the premier first star of 2025.
Here are the three
stars from the 49ers’ 17-13 opening week win over the Seattle Seahawks:
Third star: WR Ricky Pearsall
The chemistry from Pearsall and Purdy’s opening drive in Week 2 of the preseason against the Las Vegas Raiders carried over into the regular season.
Pearsall shone in his first game as the 49ers’ No. 1 receiver with 108 yards, with four receptions on seven targets. His day started hot, opening his day with 26 and 13-yard receptions on the 49ers’ opening 95-yard touchdown scoring drive.
Then his day went quiet. He had two targets from the 8:05 mark in the first quarter to the 13:35 point of the fourth quarter, when Pearsall worked through an illegal use of hands by Riq Woolen for a 24-yard catch to help set up Moody’s lone make.
His biggest play came when the 49ers needed him the most. Trailing by three with under three minutes left, Pearsall got a step on Woolen, and Purdy dropped the ball right into the bucket for 45 yards, completely flipping the field. Five plays later, San Francisco scored what proved to be the game-winning touchdown.
Pearsall’s day could have been even better with a touchdown, but Woolen was able to knock down a Purdy pass that didn’t have enough zest on it. Nonetheless, Pearsall’s performance was huge, especially in the absence of Brandon Aiyuk, George Kittle, and Jauan Jennings.
Second star: LB Dee Winters
Robert Saleh deserves a ton of credit for Sunday’s win. The defense had that extra oomph it’s been missing since DeMeco Ryans roamed the sideline as the defensive coordinator.
No player personified Saleh on the field quite like Dee Winters.
Winters’ debut as the full-time replacement for the guy next to Fred Warner could not have gone any better. After recording zero tackles for loss in his previous 30 career games, Winters had two on Sunday, and probably should have been credited with a third.
Facing a third-and-8 at the midway point of the second quarter, Seattle attempted a screen pass to Kenneth Walker, but Winters was there to slow the running back down before Nick Bosa would end the drive, tackling Walker for a loss of three.
While his first recorded tackle for loss came earlier in the second quarter, Winters’ biggest play came in the fourth quarter as the defense attempted to prevent Seattle from taking a lead. Trying to keep the clock moving toward the four-minute mark, Sam Darnold handed it off to Walker. Winters blew through the line to stop Walker for a loss of one, setting up a third-and-7. Seattle would gain six yards on the third-down attempt, forcing a Jason Myers field goal to keep a touchdown open as the game-winning score.
The 49ers offense would cash in on that opportunity.
Alongside the two tackles for loss, Winters finished with six tackles, with five being solo. Winters was the most impactful player on a defense that had a high-quality day, a promising start to the post-Dre Greenlaw era.
First star: TE Jake Tonges
Tonges entered Sunday with zero career receptions.
He then entered the second quarter with zero career receptions. Then the third, and the fourth.
The tight end got all the way to the 49ers’ final full possession with zero receptions, which makes sense considering he entered Sunday as the third tight end. But on that final possession, things changed.
Tonges found himself in the spotlight due to Kittle’s hamstring injury, which saw the all-pro exit the game in the second quarter. The spotlight proved not to be too bright for the third-year tight end.
He collected his first and second career catches right before the two-minute warning as the 49ers were chasing a three-point Seattle lead. But then his moment came. With a field goal tying game, San Francisco’s offense was chasing the win instead of settling for overtime. Purdy forced a pass into the endzone that seemed destined to end up in the hands of Woolen.
But like Dwight Clark in 1982 or Terrell Owens in 1999 or Vernon Davis in 2012, Tonges went and got the ball, grabbing victory from the jaws of defeat.
The final Tonges stat just to show how unlikely his fourth quarter was: Sunday is the first time in Tonges’ career he can say he has more receptions than tackles, recording two tackles in the first two seasons of his career, before his first three receptions on Sunday.
Throughout the season, I will track the three stars of the season, tallying up points for each star award using a complex scoring system: three points for being the first star, two for the second, and one for the third. Through Week 1, the standings are:
- TE Jake Tonges – 3 points
- LB Dee Winters – 2 points
- WR Ricky Pearsall – 1 point
