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There’s one statistic that best illustrates how Seattle smothered the 49ers, 13-3, with so much on the line at Levi’s Stadium on Saturday night: The Seahawks didn’t run a single snap in base defense, yet they managed to stifle running back Christian McCaffrey to the tune of 23 yards on eight attempts.
Yes, the Seahawks played with at least one extra defensive back instead of a bigger linebacker — in either their nickel or dime packages – on all 42 of the 49ers’ offensive snaps. And the 49ers still were unable to run the football. That’s how thoroughly Seattle’s vaunted defensive line whipped the 49ers, which was without star left tackle Trent Williams, up front.
The primary offshoot of that dominance was predictable: Seattle teed off with its pass rush, pressured 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy on nearly 40% of snaps, and generally blanketed receivers. The 49ers had few answers after receiver Ricky Pearsall was surprisingly ruled out with a knee injury before the game (remember that Pearsall’s fourth-quarter deep reception had tilted the 49ers’ Week 1 win at Seattle in their favor).
McCaffrey then dropped the 49ers’ best opportunity to claw back into the game. His bobble near the goal line turned into a Seattle interception and effectively shut the door on the 49ers’ tenuous chances.
“It’s a play that I absolutely have to make,” McCaffrey said. “I expect nothing less but to make that play. It’s completely on me.”
The 49ers, who had been tantalizingly close to securing an NFC West title and home-field advantage through the playoffs (with the Super Bowl coming to Levi’s), will instead have to take to the road as a much lower seed. Their exact positioning and first postseason opponent will be determined by Sunday’s games.
“I like the mindset of, ‘Nothing has gone right for this team this year, so why would we have it any other way right now?’” 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk said in the locker room. “Let’s do it the hard way’ has been the theme of the season, so let’s just lean into that.”
Seattle certainly made life difficult for the 49ers, who knew that the absences of Williams and Pearsall would make a game against perhaps the NFL’s top defense a truly uphill climb.
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That’s why 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan dug into his bag of aggressive tricks in the first half. The problem was that neither of them worked. A play-action shot on fourth-and-one turned into a dud when the 49ers’ protection didn’t hold up long enough for Purdy to find wide-open tight end George Kittle. A double-pitch circus play also turned into a relative dud when Seattle didn’t bite on any of the eye candy the 49ers sold in the backfield.
Smoke and mirrors failed — and the 49ers collectively followed suit shortly thereafter. While McCaffrey’s drop near the goal line killed the team’s most promising march, it also underscored the delicate tightrope that the 49ers had navigated this entire season – and especially over a six-game win streak entering Saturday’s game.
The Seattle defense limited Christian McCaffrey to just 23 rushing yards on eight carries on Saturday night. | Source: Amber Pietz/The Standard
The injury-decimated 49ers defense, ranked No. 24 entering Saturday’s game, isn’t good. The offense had been brilliant in its successful run of picking up the slack, but it also had been skating on thin ice — especially at a receiver position already down its most expensive piece, Brandon Aiyuk. The losses of Pearsall and Williams were the straws that broke the camel’s back. They left Purdy, who completed 19-of-27 passes but at only 4.7 yards per attempt, with little time to throw and no consistent downfield separation to work with against the Seahawks.
It’s no coincidence that Kittle specifically mentioned potential returns from those two players as he philosophized about the 49ers’ path moving forward.
“We lost at home to a division rival for the division and the No. 1 seed,” Kittle said. “That sucks. I’m disappointed about it. It’s horrible. The good news is I get to play football next week. … It’s going to be on the road in a hostile environment. Would I much rather be on a bye and play at Levi’s? Yeah, but that’s just not the reality. … We have a whole new season ahead of us.
“Hopefully, we get Trent back — that’d be super helpful. Maybe Ricky, too.”
Shanahan said that, had the 49ers played on Sunday instead of Saturday on a short week, Williams and Pearsall would’ve had much better chances to suit up.
“They were pushing it,” he said. “It would’ve been too risky to play them, though. They pushed it all the way up to the end, but it wouldn’t have been the smartest decision by us to let them play.”
Though the path has grown far more treacherous, the 49ers’ formula moving forward remains unchanged: They must still strive to deliver top-tier offense to mask a staggering defense.
That unit certainly did have its moments against Seattle (holding the Seahawks to 13 points is an objectively good final result), but glaring reminders of why the 49ers’ offense must be the locomotive to pull the train again reared their ugly heads.
Seahawks running back Zach Charbonnet had plenty of open lanes against an exhausted 49ers defense on Saturday. | Source: Amber Pietz/The Standard
The defense missed a bevy of tackles, drawing Shanahan’s ire in a halftime television interview. It bled yardage on the ground, allowing both Seattle running backs to deliver inexcusable chunk plays. Zach Charbonnet blasted around the whole 49ers unit for a 27-yard touchdown run to open the scoring. Kenneth Walker III then delivered a demoralizing 20-yard run on third-and-17 in the second half, sending 49ers’ general manager John Lynch — as seen in his suite by television cameras — into a fit of public exasperation.
So while the 49ers can certainly build on positive performances from players such as nickelback Upton Stout, a rookie who can benefit greatly from high-stakes January football that the team is currently involved in, it’s clear that they’ll have to continue overcoming a defense that’s been consistently shoddy for damaging stretches in recent weeks.
The 49ers’ offense, with its measly 173 yards and 22 minutes of possession, failed miserably in that mission to pick up the slack on Saturday.
“It’s horrible,” Kittle said. “I hate losing to the Seahawks. But, hey, we get to play football next week. And regardless of what happens, go Cardinals.”
That was a shout-out to Arizona. The Cardinals visit the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday afternoon. If Arizona wins, the 49ers will be the NFC’s No. 5 seed and they’ll travel to either Carolina or Tampa Bay — two markedly worse opponents than the Philadelphia Eagles or Chicago Bears, whom the 49ers would be slated to visit as the No. 6 seed in the event of a Rams win.
The playoff permutations will settle themselves by late Sunday afternoon. For now, the 49ers — with the concrete drying on a successful 12-5 regular season — must shake off Saturday’s disappointment so that they can put fair energy into the path ahead.
“Now we’ve got to do it the hard way,” Shanahan said. “And we’ll embrace the s—- out of doing the hard way and look forward to it.”