The San Francisco 49ers suffered a tough 41-6 loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday, ending their season prematurely in the NFC Divisional Round as they couldn\u2019t get anything going on either side of the ball.<\/p>\n
It was a game that the 49ers needed a fast start in, and that just didn\u2019t happen. San Francisco gave up a touchdown on the opening kickoff and quickly fell behind 17-0 after one quarter before things got ugly by halftime.<\/p>\n
Offensively, the 49ers were hoping for a much better day than the one they had two weeks prior against the Seahawks in Week 18, when they conjured up just 173 yards of total offense. They had 236 on Saturday, but averaged even fewer yards per play as they had zero explosive days after the play.<\/p>\n
Speaking after the game, quarterback Brock Purdy lamented the offensive effort, acknowledging where the team fell short for the second time against the Seahawks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no secret in terms of their style of play. It\u2019s try to make the quarterback check it down and play deep to short,\u201d Purdy said. \u201cAnd then, within that, have a good pass rush. And that\u2019s a good defense, man. Like, it\u2019s a smart way to play. And bring some pressure and stuff also, and try to make them mess up. They did a good job with that. I do think there were still some (opportunities) for us to stay on the field and grit it out. Those are kind of the wins that we\u2019ve done in the past, too. But tonight just wasn\u2019t our night with that. It\u2019s a tip of the cap to them, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c[They have our number because] probably just what I just said, in terms of you really have to play smart football, check the ball down and stay on the field on third downs,\u201d Purdy added. \u201cAnd they\u2019re a kind of defense, they\u2019re not going to give up the big shot plays, or when you have one-on-one match-ups and you capitalize, you get all the yards off of it. They\u2019re going to play soft zone and make you go through your read and check it down, and a gain of six, seven yards, and really play that the whole game. And so they\u2019ve done a good job with that. I think for all of us, including myself, we\u2019ve got to understand that when we\u2019re going against these guys — and that\u2019s why it\u2019s crucial to capitalize on third downs and stay on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
Purdy kept the 49ers alive in that game by extending plays and moving well in the pocket to avoid sacks. If there was one area he could\u2019ve (and needed to) improve on, it was taking the checkdowns, which were open for a good part of the game.<\/p>\n
With the 49ers just getting zero explosives and not even many of their regular intermediate beaters, they were going to have to move the ball taking short gain after short gain, which isn\u2019t the best formula for success.<\/p>\n
Taking the checkdowns more often probably doesn\u2019t change the overall outcome of the game. But it\u2019s a learning lesson for next year for Purdy, as he continues to try to navigate head coach Mike Macdonald\u2019s defense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Francisco 49ers suffered a tough 41-6 loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday, ending their season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,6,52067,1137],"class_list":{"0":"post-689293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-roster","11":"tag-san-francisco-49ers-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115923215011337001","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689293","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=689293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}