49ers’ red-hot offense cooled off by Seahawks’ stifling defense
SANTA CLARA — Who were those guys with the ball in the black jerseys?
It was the 49ers as we haven’t seen them this season, their offense reduced to rubble with Brock Purdy bent over backward on a sack on their final snap in their biggest game of the year. The 49ers were overmatched by a defense that stuffed them at every turn.
The Seattle Seahawks (14-3) won the NFC West and the No. 1 seed throughout the playoffs with a 13-3 win over the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium, and it really wasn’t that close. The 49ers offense, which had taken the Kyle Shanahan attack to new heights since their bye week, was limited to a 48-yard field goal by Eddy Piñeiro with 1:06 left in the first half.
“It’s kind of hard to expect to really win the game if we’re not going to score more than a field goal,” tight end George Kittle said in the aftermath. “Shout out to Eddy, though. Thank you for making it.”
The 49ers (12-5) will play an undetermined opponent next week on the road in a wild-card round. Unless they draw a higher-seeded team that upset someone in either the divisional or championship round, they’re done at Levi’s Stadium unless they reach Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8.
Frankly, that looks as far away as the first-down marker did against a Seattle defense that was dominant from start to finish. It didn’t help that the 49ers were missing left tackle Trent Williams (hamstring) and wide receiver Ricky Pearsall Jr. (knee). But the 49ers have gone without key players all season and there is no sense in making excuses now.
Because Seattle missed a pair of field goal attempts of 47 and 26 yards, the 49ers had two chances in the second half to mount a comeback. But defensive end Yetur Gross-Matos couldn’t come up with a fumbled handoff exchange between Sam Darnold and Zach Charbonnet. Then, Christian McCaffrey, of all people, let a Purdy swing pass bounce off his hands and into the waiting arms of Drake Thomas with 10:27 to play at the 6-yard line with the score 13-3.
The ball was deflected by Boye Mafe at the line of scrimmage and was behind McCaffrey, but it was still a catch he could have made and said he should have made.
“I know he’s got an option route on me, and honestly, he probably beats me to the corner,” Thomas said. “I think Mafe got a piece of the ball and it changed the direction of it. It hit off his back shoulder and bounced right into my hands.”
The 10-point lead may as well have been 100. The Seahawks shut down the run, with McCaffrey gaining 23 yards on eight carries and the 49ers getting 53 yards on 12 overall, with 21 coming on two Purdy scrambles.
“We expected to do better than we did,” Shanahan said. “We knew they had a good defense in Week 1 (a 17-13 49ers win). We knew it from watching tape all week. We had a couple of opportunities I thought we missed. And you can’t miss those versus a team like that.”
Purdy, who has been on point since returning from turf toe, was 19 of 27 for just 127 yards and was sacked three times. But unlike the last three weeks, where Purdy’s passes went to receivers who were able to turn upfield for yards after catch, it was a different experience against Seattle.
Dink and dunk? More like dink and thump. Seattle doesn’t miss many tackles. In their previous week’s win over Carolina, the Seahawks didn’t allow a pass completion of longer than eight yards.
In their first three games since the bye, the 49ers averaged 455.3 yards and 42.3 points per game. They were 21-for-45, or 60 percent, on third down. Granted, those games were against Tennessee, Indianapolis and Chicago.
Against the Seahawks, the average third down was more than seven yards away and they were 2-for-9.
“They’re a good defense, good front, and they did a good job making me go through my reads and checking the ball down,: Purdy said. “I wish I could have been more efficient. They’re going to make you work for your yards and convert on third down. If you want to win games like these, you’ve got to be good on third down.”
Seattle defensive tackle Leonard Williams, the linchpin of the defensive front, was asked if holding the 49ers to just three points was beyond expectation.
“I don’t think so,” Williams said. “I don’t have any doubt in any part of this team. Our defense has been playing lights-out all season. They have a great offense. I think we did a good job today.”
Right tackle Colton McKivitz conceded the obvious, while noting the 49ers going through the playoffs the hard way was in keeping with the club’s personality of making things as difficult as possible.
“They were better than us today,” McKivitz said. “I think they’re a little more physical. We didn’t play our best ball. We didn’t play to our standard and our defense gave us a chance to win that game; we just didn’t come up with enough points.”
The Seahawks in a sense beat the 49ers at their own game, piling up the rushing attempts and yards (39 carries, 180 yards) and getting a 27-yard touchdown run from Charbonnet on their first possession. Darnold was 20 of 26 for 198 yards and the Seahawks had a 37:48 to 22:12 advantage in time of possession.
Seattle had three sacks of Purdy and hit him eight times. Rookie linebacker/safety Nick Emmanwori had seven tackles.
“Our offense kind of takes on a different identity each week,” 49ers center Jake Brendel said. “We were a little bit different today than the previous couple of weeks. We just got to get back to our bread and butter. We couldn’t get our wide zone (run) going, and I feel that kind of opens up defenses in the past. I think we wasted too many opportunities that we had.”
Purdy, who said he had a stinger on the last play and should be fine, said they’ll make corrections on film and doesn’t believe the offense is in a state of shock or surprise after playing so well going into the game.
“We always feel that there are plays left out there and we could have converted,” Purdy said. “We just didn’t. I’m not going to sit here and go, `man, how the heck did that happen?’ When we’ve had these other games where we pulled away and had good points and stats, we were gritty and executed on third downs and stayed on the field. It was something we needed to do tonight, and we didn’t.”
Kittle remained as positive as he could be under the circumstances.
“We lost a home to a division rival and (lost) the 1-seed and that sucks,” Kittle said. “Yes, I’m very disappointed about it. It’s horrible. The good news is I get to play football next week.”