Niners survive second-half hibernation. Monday night’s showdown started off lopsided just as many prognosticated. The 49ers made Odyssey-length marches look commonplace, going 64 yards or longer on four of their first five possessions and turning them into 20 points. Brock Purdy started off on fire, throwing numerous pinpoint passes and twice extending drives by scrambling to move the chains on third down or later. Christian McCaffrey scored twice, running his touchdown streak to five games, while George Kittle collected five catches for 69 yards and his fifth TD of the young season. The 49ers totaled 303 yards to Washington’s 90 at halftime, with a 20-3 lead they extended to 23-3 with a 65-yard drive for a field goal on their first possession of the third quarter. Then came the comeback. While Washington deserves a lot of the credit, the 49ers’ offensive problems can be traced back to Mike Evans going down with an Achilles injury with 1:03 remaining in the second quarter. San Francisco was able to travel another 12 yards to finish it off with a score, and the offense had the aforementioned 65-yard trek without him on its only drive of the third quarter. However, the 49ers went three-and-out on three fourth-quarter possessions to let the Commanders back in it. Evans finished the game with a team-leading 94 receiving yards. Kittle and McCaffrey had a combined 18 targets, while no other Niners pass catcher saw more than two. There was no one else healthy left to throw to, and it would’ve cost the 49ers had their defense not saved the day with two massive stops at the end of the game. Evans has been on a lot of injury reports all season, but he’s made every start. He’s clearly vital to the operation. Luckily, head coach Kyle Shanahan said after the game that Evans is only sore and won’t require more testing. That’s major for a Niners wide receiver room that has sustained heavy losses.
Daniels almost makes amends for previous loss. There could not have been a more trepidatious week for Jayden Daniels to play under the prime-time spotlight. His brain fart in Week 5 against the Giants, taking a sack and allowing time to run out in overtime when the Commanders were in position for a game-winning field goal, likely hung heavy over Daniels and the team during their Monday night preparations. That certainly looked to be the case early on, as Washington got little going and the defense appeared overpowered by a mighty 49ers crew. Daniels flipped a switch on the other side of half, though, completely rewriting the narrative of a game that initially looked to be too much for the Commanders. After penalties derailed Washington’s first third-quarter possession, Daniels led back-to-back scoring drives of 56 and 66 yards, carving up San Francisco’s defense despite Terry McLaurin being carted off in the opening frame with a knee injury. Daniels, who went 22 of 30 for 212 passing yards, two touchdowns and a 114.9 passer rating in the second half, then saw two different chances to lead a game-winning drive and quiet the noise from the past eight days. He not only came up just short, he unfortunately also made a massive mistake on each possession. On the first, he was forced to burn a timeout after letting the play clock run down on a fourth-and-8, which meant the Commanders would have one less chance to stop the clock if they didn’t convert. They did, but turned it over on downs a few plays later, leaving Washington only two timeouts already under the two-minute warning. After Washington’s defense, which had turned it on to make life hell for Brock Purdy and Co. throughout the second half, got Daniels the ball back, he again committed a huge no-no by intentionally grounding the ball to avoid a sack just after he’d led the offense to San Francisco’s 28-yard line. That left him with only a hail Mary chance left, which he was sacked on. Daniels and Washington showed so much fight, but there’s always been a Jekyll-and-Hyde nature to the quarterback’s play. Much to the chagrin of Commanders fans, Hyde has reared his head at the end of the past two games.
Niners = Lumber Layers “R” Us. It looks painful to play the 49ers. There’s no metric to share to prove it, but those watching were treated to some of the most punishing hits all season. Fred Warner led the way in that regard, with the majority of his eight tackles being thumpers likely heard throughout the Bay Area. Every Commanders player who dared touch the ball paid for it against a defense that is currently allowing 18.3 points per game. The 49ers defenders didn’t only play the role of enforcers, however. They were also saviors for San Francisco. After the offense went quiet, Raheem Morris’ defense came to the rescue, tightening up to preserve a six-point lead across two different Commanders drives. Malik Mustapha stepped up during the first possession, stoning Jeremy McNichols for no gain on a third-and-3 play, then breaking up a Jayden Daniels’ pass to an airborne Treylon Burks on the ensuing fourth-down attempt. On the final drive, it was Romello Height, who led the team with five pressure and had a fourth-down half sack on the previous drive wiped away by an illegal contact penalty. He was the one who forced Daniels into a grounding penalty, buying the Niners a 15-second runoff and another 12 yards of cushion, then right after finished the game by splitting a sack with Keion White on the final play. It was another banner day for San Francisco’s hard-hitting heroes.
San Francisco is sitting pretty atop NFC West. It was easy to overlook the 49ers in August. After all, they shared a division with both the Lombardi Trophy holders and the offseason champions. It would be absurd to overlook them now. The two rivals that garnered more attention, the Seahawks and Rams, have fewer wins combined (five) than San Francisco does after six weeks. The 49ers hold a three-game lead over the Seahawks and a four-game margin over the Cardinals and Rams, with head-to-head tiebreakers over all three of them. They nearly collapsed during the second half, but like good, complementary teams tend to do, they found a way to eke out a victory. It’d be difficult at this point to argue with anyone who wants to call the Niners the best in the NFL.
Bad news, good news for Commanders. It has not been a good start to the season for Washington. The Commanders have managed only one win in six games — although it did come against the defending Super Bowl champions — and just fell short in a blowout-turned-nailbiter to the 49ers to fall to 1-4-1. Luckily, that’s not a death sentence in this year’s NFC East, especially if the defense can maintain the form it found in the second half after allowing the most points in the league over the first five games. No one in the division has won a game since Week 4, marking the first time in league history every team in a division has played consecutive weeks without a victory, per NFL Research. It’s a feat made more (un)impressive by the fact that the Commanders and Giants went head-to-head in Week 5, a game that ended in a tie after disastrous overtime mistakes by both squads. So, the Commanders are simultaneously at the bottom of the NFC East and in OK shape. They have the same number of losses as the Cowboys (2-4) and Eagles (2-4) and are by no means an impossible distance behind the first-place Giants (3-2-1). Only blind optimists would bank on Washington rebounding for a wild-card spot at this point, but there’s a path to the playoffs through the division. The Commanders can rest and reset during their upcoming bye with that in mind.
Next Gen Stats Insight for Commanders-49ers (via NFL Pro): The 49ers gained 198 yards and scored two touchdowns with multiple RBs on the field (including Kyle Juszczyk), the most yards by any offense this season. San Francisco has gained 160-plus yards from multi-RB sets in four of their six games. No other team has done so once.
NFL Research: Brock Purdy, who reached the 1,500 minimum pass attempts required to be eligible for career leaderboards, is now the current record-holder for career passer rating (105.6).