Plus, 3 other things to take away from Week 4
A lot of what can be taken away from the 49ers’ 30-13 win over the Patriots could be written off with a simple “New England isn’t good.” And while fair, I don’t like to look at it like that. The 49ers lost Weeks 2 and 3 to teams they were better than, and New England falls into the “teams the 49ers are better than” category.
Things could have been different if San Francisco had played like the previous two weeks on Sunday, but the 49ers did not play poorly. They put together their best performance of 2024 and were rewarded with a 17-point victory.
So, I think there was plenty to learn from September’s 49ers’ final game.
The defensive line has some quality depth to it
Nick Bosa and Leonard Floyd finally had their first great game together as a tandem, combining for 13 pressures, four quarterback hits, seven hurries, and a sack. And while Bosa and Floyd were excellent, the rest of the defensive line stood out.
The interior of the pass rush had the most significant impact on the game. After losing Javon Hargrave for the season and Jordan Elliott early in the game, Maliek Collins and Kevin Givens stepped up in Hargrave’s absence. Givens set a career-high for a season with 2.5 sacks of Jacoby Brissett on Sunday (his previous career-high in sacks was 2.0 in 2022), pressuring the quarterback four times and hitting him three times. Collins added a sack and a half of his own with four pressures and two quarterback hits in his best game as a 49er.
Sam Okuayinonu had impressive back-to-back plays against Los Angeles with a pressure and a sack of Matthew Stafford, and he carried that performance into this week. He made an instant impact, forcing the Rhamondre Stevenson fumble in the first quarter, leading to San Francisco’s second field goal. Okuayinonu would finish with a career-high three pressures with a quarterback hit in his increased snaps.
Evan Anderson added another sack and a tackle for loss. Yetur Gross-Matos had a pair of pressures and quarterback hurries. And while it was against a weaker New England offensive line, it was a performance from the defensive line that was needed to get some momentum after a few injuries.
Kyle Shanahan thinks Brock Purdy is a great quarterback (Shanahan would be correct)
The 49ers offense had a stretch in the second half where Shanahan dialed up a deep shot on the opening play on three of four possessions. Purdy repaid Shanahan by connecting on two of the three shot plays–once to Deebo Samuel and once to Jauan Jennings–for 100 yards.
Pick your favorite pre-Purdy, Shanahan-era quarterback. Shanahan would have called that stretch of plays for zero of them.
It was the latest indicator of Shanahan’s growing trust in the third-year quarterback. Last week, it was the trust to still stretch the field vertically without Deebo Samuel or George Kittle, and on Sunday, it was whatever the heck Shanahan was running out there for Purdy:
Purdy has the freedom to improvise, a trait that Shanahan has never seemed to like in his offense, but the quarterback had several plays that were kept alive by his feet, which resulted in positive yards. And while Sunday wasn’t his best statistically–15-for-27 for 288 yards with a touchdown and interception–there’s a noticeable improvement in Purdy’s game every week.
It’s not often you see a quarterback develop to that elite status right before your eyes, but that seems to be the path Purdy is on under Shanahan.
Jordan Mason needs an increased role in the offense when (if?) Christian McCaffrey returns
We’ve gone from being concerned about how the 49ers offense would look without McCaffrey to finding out that the offense can function perfectly fine without him in four weeks. A large part of that success has come from Mason.
Mason recorded his third 100-rushing yard game of the season, with 123 yards on 24 attempts with a touchdown. He only got better as the game went on, ripping off runs for 24 and 25 yards in the second half, adding to his total. Mason’s game could have been even more prominent with a 24-yard touchdown reception in the second quarter, but a phantom holding call on George Kittle nullified the score.
Before 2023, the San Francisco franchise record for most rushing yards through the first four games of a season was held by Charlie Garner, who ran for 423 yards in the first four games of 2000. McCaffrey would break that record last season with his 459 rushing yards through the first month. With his 123 yards on Sunday, Mason surpassed Garner and sits at 447 yards on the season.
With how Mason has performed and the sensitivity of McCaffrey’s injury, Mason will likely see plenty of touches as McCaffrey eases back into things. Still, with both players healthy, Mason has proved he needs touches. It’s a future problem with McCaffrey’s status up in the air, but it will need to be addressed at some point in the future.
The 49ers are almost all the way back
This will also fall under the “it’s the Patriots” category, but the 49ers looked good on Sunday. But for a team with Super Bowl aspirations, good just won’t cut it.
Despite scoring 30 points, plenty was left on the field. San Francisco opened the game with back-to-back drives, moving the ball into the red zone, but the 49ers could only manage six points from the two drives. The offense would score touchdowns on their two other drives that got into the red zone, matching their red zone touchdown percentage on the season. The 50 percent touchdown percentage inside the red zone puts the 49ers smack dab in the middle of the league after finishing first in the category last season.
Special teams made another blunder on Sunday as well. Coming out of halftime, New England kicked the ball off to Isaac Guerendo, who, on the return, fumbled the ball to be recovered by the Patriots. New England would take the field position and score a few plays later to cut the San Francisco lead to ten. Just a week removed from a game where several special teams mistakes cost the 49ers the game, you would think the group would try to avoid the mistake, but Sunday saw another unforced error.
In part because of the red zone struggles and the special teams’ mistake, the 49ers couldn’t pull away to a comfortable lead. It was never a game that was in doubt, especially after the 49ers took a 20-0 first-half lead. But after New England cut the lead to 17, the 49ers had three second-half drives with a chance to push the lead back to 20, but went punt, punt, interception, to allow New England to hang around. Last season, this felt like a game where the 49ers would have jumped out to a big league and continued to extend the lead.
A win is a win, and Sunday felt like a big step for the 49ers before the schedule gets tough. After the slow start to the season, Sunday could be an indicator that San Francisco is returning to form. Mistakes were made, but the win was good progress from the previous two weeks.