{"id":683944,"date":"2026-01-17T10:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T10:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/683944\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T10:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T10:06:17","slug":"49ers-news-another-49ers-game-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/683944\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers News: Another 49ers GAME DAY"},"content":{"rendered":"

49ers vs. Seahawks: The Standard\u2019s 5 fast predictions (paywall)<\/a>
\u201cKawakami: Seahawks 23, 49ers 20. Will the 49ers put the same kind of mental and strategic pressure on the Seahawks that they put on the Eagles? Yes, I think so. Which means that one play \u2014 say, \u201cSkyy Bang Reverse Pass\u201d \u2014 can steal the game. But the Seahawks are made of sterner stuff than the Eagles, and they\u2019re just as talented. The 49ers will have to play even better to win this game. And at some point, the accumulation of injury losses will mean they\u2019ll miss that one player who could\u2019ve turned the game.<\/p>\n

Hutchinson: 49ers-Seahawks preview: So you\u2019re telling me there\u2019s a chance?
<\/a>\u201cThe Seahawks\u2019 offense has been stuck in mud. Sam Darnold turns the ball over more than any quarterback in the league, and he\u2019s dealing with an oblique injury that will be treated as *something* until proven otherwise (I don\u2019t care how \u201cnothing\u201d it is. It\u2019s the starting quarterback picking up an oblique injury two days before. Those are painful. Purdy can attest).<\/p>\n

The 49ers\u2019 secondary impressed me last week. Deommodore Lenoir made up for a dreadful first half. Renardo Green looked outstanding, as did Upton Stout. Marques Sigle? A revelation. The clear weak point, in my estimation, is Malik Mustapha. He\u2019s struggled in coverage, and Dallas Goedert attacked him successfully more than once.<\/p>\n

If the 49ers run Cover-4 against a high-low concept designed to stress their young safeties, they should defer to letting Mustapha carry anything underneath and have Sigle \u2014 whose speed fundamentally raises the ceiling of this group \u2014 carry the vertical threat.\u201c<\/p>\n

Kurtenbach: My 49ers-Seahawks (part 3) prediction \u2014 great start, tough finish (paywall)<\/a>
\u201cThey\u2019ll attack Seattle\u2019s versatile Cover 2 looks by going wide. Seattle doesn\u2019t match offensive personnel \u2014they have more athletic freaks than the Niners\u2019 offense does \u2014 but as the Rams showed in Week 16, that arrogance leaves Seattle susceptible to overloads.<\/p>\n

The Niners can\u2019t match the Rams\u2019 three-tight-end sets; they don\u2019t have the bodies. But they can go empty. They can go four-wide with McCaffrey bumping out and in and back out again.<\/p>\n

Expect Brock Purdy to look like he\u2019s back at Iowa State, playing Big 12 football \u2014 with dart-like throws into wide, intermediate lanes they couldn\u2019t find in Week 18 \u2014 to manufacture a hot start.\u201c<\/p>\n

49ers\u2019 best chance at cracking Seahawks\u2019 defense hinges on the run game<\/a>
\u201cBut the most vexing player for the 49ers might be hybrid rookie safety Nick Emmanwori, a massive reason McCaffrey had 23 yards and averaged 2.9 yards per attempt despite Seattle staying in its nickel defense, employing an extra defensive back, and playing two safeties deep.<\/p>\n

Emmanwori, 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, is a second-round pick whose versatility helped Seattle limit McCaffrey while playing a defense typically reserved for passing downs.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s so big and long and he has the ability to play the run at a very elite level, like a good linebacker can, but he\u2019s also really athletic and can cover,\u201d offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak said. \u201cHe\u2019s really a jack of all trades for them. He allows them to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The biggest key for the 49ers offense to avoid a repeat of Jan. 3? Kubiak spelled it out: They need to run the ball well enough to get Seattle out of its nickel defense, which will create more opportunities for Purdy.\u201c<\/p>\n

Five 49ers to watch in do-or-die divisional round playoff matchup<\/a>
\u201cSigle started the first seven games of the season before the 49ers settled on Malik Mustapha and Ji\u2019Ayir Brown as the starters. The 49ers decided after the Week 5 game against the Los Angeles Rams to replace Sigle.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the Rams game, (I) felt like he needed to take a step back and just kind of absorb a little bit more, and now he\u2019s getting his opportunity,\u201d 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh said. \u201cObviously, his first game went pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upton Stout recalls NFL debut in Seattle as 49ers prepare for playoff showdown<\/a>
\u201c\u201cI was nervous, but it was also like, \u2018I got to get a job done,\u2019 \u201d Stout told NBC Sports Bay Area. \u201cAnd then it was also my first game because I had missed [the] preseason. So it was like everything was just going fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stout was wide-eyed, literally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just seeing everything,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, as a DB, if you see everything, you\u2019re seeing too much.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"49ers vs. Seahawks: The Standard\u2019s 5 fast predictions (paywall)\u201cKawakami: Seahawks 23, 49ers 20. Will the 49ers put the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,52307,7,6,1161,252,1137,2624,2623],"class_list":{"0":"post-683944","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-49ers","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-49ers-links","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","14":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-news","15":"tag-sanfrancisco","16":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115909884932507531","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}