Brock Purdy- 49ers.com /Terrell Lloyd
The San Francisco 49ers came back from a tough loss to Baltimore Ravens and defeated the Washington Commanders 27-10 on the road in Maryland. As an added bonus, the Arizona Cardinals upset the Philadelphia Eagles, thus securing the number one seed for the 49ers in the NFC playoffs!
Quarterback Brock Purdy set two 49ers franchise records for a season: 32 touchdowns, and 4,280 yards passing. George Kittle and Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel also set franchise records of over 1,000 yards in a season.
The game itself had the 49ers leaning on the run game with Christian McCaffery, who left the game in the second half with a calf strain. Backup running back Elijah Mitchell picked up the slack, and ran for 80 yards on 14 plays against the worst defense in the NFL. Deebo Samuel added some great runs and catches to also become part of the Elite Five of Purdy, Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, Kittle and McCaffery being in the over one-thousand yard group, which hasn't been done since the 2004 NFL season. Check out the amazing stats in the above graphic. This was my highlight of the game- I call it the Purdy Scramble; Purdy to Brandon Aiyuk for an amazing touchdown:
Purdy's stat line for the day was 22-28 for 230 yards and two touchdowns, shaking off the awful performance he had against the Ravens. The San Francisco offense dominated with 408 total yards and controlled the clock, 38 minutes to the Commanders 21 minutes. The 49er defense was sluggish in the first half (jet-lag?), but in the second half the defense tightened up at the defensive line, shutting down the Commanders running game and forcing two Washington turnovers with interceptions by Deommodore Lenoir and Charvarius Ward. It's a decent bet that the 49ers will rest most of their star players next weekend as they host the Los Angeles Rams in the final game of the regular season. One thing is for certain, that the San Francisco 49ers are the #1 seed and have a bye week in the NFC! Oh, and add this very important nugget of information from ESPN staff writer Nick Wagoner about travel: "Beyond the rest, the 49ers won't have to get on an airplane again until they reach Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas should they make it that far. For a team that will have racked up the second-most travel miles this season with five trips to the eastern time zone and another to the central time zone, that's another meaningful perk of claiming the top spot." Those frequent flyer miles can now take a rest for the playoffs! Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!
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