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CLEVELAND — It started at 49ers practice on Thanksgiving Day. Brock Purdy waltzed into the end zone. He didn’t care it was just a slow-speed walk-through. He began dancing, executing a flawless “Dougie.”
The quarterback’s teammates cracked up.
“He’s the man,” 49ers receiver Jauan Jennings said. “Brock’s him. He did that for us at practice, so we were expecting it again today.”
And they got it. Purdy’s key touchdown run gave the 49ers a commanding second-half lead. They improved to 9-4 with their 26-8 win over the Cleveland Browns.
The 49ers marched out under the pounding of aluminum bleachers, a sound made famous by Cleveland’s “Dawg Pound,” to face a Browns defense that featured the most fearsome line in football. Purdy had faced plenty of questions over the week since his three-interception performance in a win against the Carolina Panthers. A third straight victory for the 49ers didn’t seem like a certainty as they stepped into 40 mph wind gusts whipping off Lake Erie.
All-Pro Browns defensive lineman Myles Garrett then drilled Purdy on the game’s very first play from scrimmage. But the 49ers’ franchise quarterback shrugged off the big hit. He completed a pass to fullback Kyle Juszczyk, a Cleveland-area native, on the play and even shared smiling banter with Garrett right after picking himself up off the ground.
The Browns pressured Purdy on 58% of his drop backs, according to ESPN, their highest rate in a game over the past three seasons. But they managed to sack Purdy only once. It was Garrett’s league-leading 19th sack of the season.
Purdy’s elite pressure-to-sack ratio, which ranks as the NFL’s best, was on full display against a ferocious pass rush.
“There seemed to be a lot of opps with how close it was, but [Purdy] likes getting out on time or he sees me,” Garrett said. “Credit to him, he avoided the rush well.”
By the second half, after Purdy had evaded a free Garrett rush with throwaway, the Browns’ edge rusher was begging for another shot at the quarterback.
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Friday, Nov. 21
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“Come on, bro,” Garrett told Purdy, smiling again. “Just give me another chance.”
“I’m sorry, bro,” Purdy responded.
Purdy never did allow Garrett another opportunity. He instead fist bumped Garrett in happy-go-lucky fashion and punctuated the emphatic victory with a 7-yard touchdown strike to Jennings.
Though Purdy’s 16-of-29, 168-yard day wasn’t statistically gaudy, it was a virtually flawless performance against a stout defense in adverse conditions. Though further precipitation held off after a snowy Cleveland weekend, the wind persisted — and Purdy had to carve right through it with the 49ers trailing at the end of the first half. He uncorked a 33-yard dime to tight end George Kittle.
“That was huge,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said. “We were almost not going to go for it going into the wind like that with 30 seconds left. The odds of their pass rush making something bad happen seemed a little higher than going and scoring. Throwing that go route into the wind like, going that way — that was a big-time play by Brock and a huge catch by George.”
Kittle’s catch set up a short Matt Gay field goal, which gave the 49ers a 10-8 lead entering the break. Purdy’s touchdown run and subsequent scoring toss to Jennings later put the game on ice.
Myles Garrett hit Purdy early in the game, but the 49ers’ quarterback got the last laugh. | Source: Kirk Irwin/Associated Press
Defense and special teams also carried their weight. The 49ers notched two stops on fourth-and-short against a Browns offense helmed by rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders, who struggled mightily after defensive coordinator Robert Saleh’s unit made effective halftime adjustments against the run.
“There’s a certain mentality that you have to have on fourth-and-one,” said 49ers safety Malik Mustapha, who stuffed the Browns on their first fourth-down try. “[Saleh] keeps it simple so we can shoot our gun. In both instances, we stopped them the first time and then — who knows? — maybe that spooked them and that’s why they fumbled the ball [the second time].”
By the time the dust settled, Clelin Ferrell and Keion White — the two defensive linemen the 49ers had acquired a week prior to the November trade deadline — had combined for three sacks in what was yet another step forward for a defense that looks capable of playing a solid complementary role to close this season.
The defense will be in especially good position if the 49ers’ special teams unit continues its worst-to-first surge. Punt returner Skyy Moore registered a 66-yard first-quarter punt return to set up the 49ers’ first touchdown, a Christian McCaffrey plunge into the end zone. Later, 49ers DB Darrell Luter Jr. hopped on a muffed Cleveland punt to position his team for the kill shot.
“We thought special teams was going to be our ace in the hole,” left tackle Trent Williams said.
He was right, and the 49ers ended a 41-year drought in Cleveland that included losses in 1993, 2007, 2015, and 2023.
The last time the 49ers beat the Browns in Cleveland, Deion Sanders — the father of the Browns’ QB this Sunday — was still a senior at North Fort Myers High in Florida.
Joe Montana was the 49ers’ quarterback, Roger Craig rushed for two touchdowns, and Keena Turner intercepted a pass in a 41-7 blowout against a Browns defense that entered the game as the NFL’s No. 1 unit.
There was one more fascinating parallel: Montana had struggled in a 49ers’ home win the week prior, throwing a career-high four interceptions. That two-week sequence wasn’t all too different from what happened here in 2025. Purdy threw those three picks against Carolina but corrected course with optimal risk-reward balance on Sunday against the Browns.
The 49ers’ win further solidifies their playoff positioning. Though they currently occupy the seventh and final NFC seed, the 49ers now have a 92% chance to make the postseason. They enter their bye week on a three-game win streak and a game closer to the division-leading Rams (9-3), who lost on Sunday to the Panthers.
The 49ers will likely need at least 10, if not 11 wins, to secure a playoff berth — but they will exit their bye as heavy favorites against a dismal Tennessee Titans team that fell to 1-11 on Sunday.
The 49ers’ only disappointment leaving Cleveland: Purdy did the Dougie alone.
“We were all supposed to do it with him,” Williams lamented, delving down into aw shucks mode as he smiled in the locker room.
It turns out that the 49ers’ quarterback, standing alone in the end zone and enveloped in the howling Lake Erie wind, had decided to start dancing early — perhaps to keep warm.
But worry not. Because if this surge continues, Purdy and his teammates will have plenty more chances at choreographed celebrations. And now that the 49ers have finally hit their bye week, Purdy will have more rehearsal time at home.
“My wife — she can tell you,” Purdy said. “I annoy her in the kitchen, that’s where I get my [Dougie] practice.”