San Francisco vs Seattle recap:
The San Francisco 49ers shrugged off early 1st quarter playoff jitters from Brock Purdy and a 17-16 halftime deficit to outscore the Seattle Seahawks 25-6 in the second half to win convincingly 41-23.
Coming into this wildcard playoff matchup, the Seahawks only scored 1 offensive TD in the previous 2 games combined against the 49ers and were 3-5 their last 8 games only beating QB’s Baker Mayfield, a banged up Mike White and John Wolford.
Brock Purdy is a main topic of conversation for a lot of people and deservedly so. The 49ers offense since Kyle Shanahan got there has not looked this good. There was a definite ceiling on the offense and team as a whole with Jimmy Garoppolo at QB. The 49ers have scored at least 33 points in every game Brock Purdy has started except the Thursday night matchup against the Seattle Seahawks when he was banged up and didn’t practice.
The 2 things I’m most impressed with Brock are:
- Ability to avoid negative plays by either running for positive yards or throwing the ball away including a natural ability to extend plays. I counted 8 sacks the Seahawks would’ve had against the 49ers if Garoppolo was the QB. There was a play during the wildcard game Brock Purdy avoided the Seahawks pass rush, rolled right, reset his feet and threw an accurate strike in the back corner of the endzone to Brandon Aiyuk who dropped the pass all while knowing he was going to get drilled doing this. This to me was the most impressive pass of the game though it fell incomplete.
- Coming into the wildcard matchup Brock led the NFL in completion rate for QB’s on 3rd and 4th When a team consistently converts on the money downs the more opportunities that team has to score points. By Shanahan electing to the throw on 3rd and 4th downs with Brock this proves he has Shanahan’s confidence and trust. You can tell how a coach feels about their QB by what plays are called. Aggressive play-calling has been a welcome sign for 49ers fans and this is because of Brock Purdy’s poise, precision, instincts in the pocket and ability to make off-schedule plays when offensive line protection breaks down
To this point in time as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, Kyle Shanahan has only been able to win games with often-injured Jimmy G, 44-19 as his starting QB. Meanwhile Shanahan is 9-29 combined with Nick Mullens, CJ Beathard, Trey Lance and Brian Hoyer as his starting QB’s. Brock Purdy is a hot 7-0 and though he’s small and doesn’t have a strong arm, he’s able to utilize the weapons he has on offense and we don’t know his ceiling yet as an NFL Player. This is the reason I don’t believe people who say any QB can win in Shanahan’s offense because it’s not true. Also, if you played fantasy football and owned George Kittle, the emergence of Brock Purdy allowed Kittle to actually put up decent fantasy stats as he was no longer a glorified offensive lineman when Jimmy was the QB.
The return of a much larger workload for Deebo Samuel is a welcome sign for the 49ers (6 catches, 133 yards, 1 TD) and Christian McCaffrey has been solid every week (17 touches, 136 yards from scrimmage). These players and stats are good but the 49ers will go as far as Brock Purdy takes this team. With the new rules in place the last 10 years or so, the QB has to make plays at some point during playoff games to win (see Super Bowl with Jimmy G at QB, he didn’t make plays from late 3rd quarter through the 4th quarter when the game really mattered). If Brock Purdy can continue to make place he has as a chance to be the first rookie QB to make the Super Bowl.
San Francisco vs Dallas preview:
Keys for Francisco to win:
- Get the usual suspects involved McCaffrey, Deebo, Aiyuk and Kittle early and often. When these guys get touches good things usually happen
- Brock Purdy stays hot and the moment isn’t too big for him, Brock is a rhythm QB therefore start with easy throws in the pass game early then progress as the game goes on to take some shots downfield with Ray Ray McCloud and Danny Gray
- Elijah Mitchell needs to become a threat in the run game to take pressure off McCaffrey. Last week Mitchell carried the ball 9 times for a total of 2 yards
- Run at Micah Parsons, he’s a pass-rusher and I don’t think Purdy can outrun him if he escapes the pocket but he is a little suspect in the run game.
- The front 4 needs to generate pressure on Dak Prescott, he’s not the same QB when he’s moved off his spot in the pocket which was something Tampa Bay couldn’t do last week.
- The LB’s and secondary need to do a better job covering RB’s in the pass game, something tells me Dallas will try to exploit San Francisco’s LB’s in coverage against their RB’s the same way Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs had a field day doing when the teams played earlier this season
- Generate turnovers against Dallas, Dak played a really good game last week against the Buccaneers but that’s not who Dak is consistently he led the NFL in INT’s this season and he missed 5 games !
- Start the game with physicality continue throughout the game, the Cowboys are not a physical team but rather a finesse team and would rather avoid a physical grind for 4 quarters
Final score prediction San Francisco 27 Dallas 20
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