{"id":493097,"date":"2026-10-12T00:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T00:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/493097\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T00:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T00:18:09","slug":"49ers-32-seahawks-29-instant-analysis-of-nfc-west-instant-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/493097\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers 32, Seahawks 29: Instant analysis of NFC West instant classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE \u2013 An NFC West prize fight<\/a> broke out here Sunday, complete with touchdowns, turnovers, taunting, tie scores and tense trading of leads.<\/p>\n

Once this Week 5 doozy ended, the 49ers\u2019 undefeated start reached 5-0 via a 32-29 triumph<\/a> over the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.<\/p>\n

It took a midfield stand, of all strange things, to finish off a thrilling chapter of this rivalry. The Seahawks (3-2) saw their last-minute drive end once a replay review upheld a ruling that Cooper Kupp came up a yard shy of a first down on a fourth-and-10 catch.<\/p>\n

Eddy Pi\u00f1eiro\u2019s 43-yard field goal scored the 49ers\u2019 winning points after he waited out the two-minute warning. Thin on receivers with Deebo Samuel out with a hamstring injury, they reached go-ahead position late in the fourth quarter thanks mostly to Christian McCaffrey, with an assist to his understudy, Kaelon Black.<\/p>\n

Five minutes before Pi\u00f1eiro\u2019s winning kick, Jason Myers tied the game on his fifth field goal of the day, a 40-yarder that followed Keion White\u2019s third-down sack of Sam Darnold.<\/p>\n

The 49ers had wrestled back the lead with 11 minutes to spare, once Brock Purdy completed a go-ahead touchdown pass to Brandin Cooks, followed by Purdy finding Mike Evans for a 2-point conversion grab and a 29-26 lead.<\/p>\n

Despite surrendering 29 points, the 49ers\u2019 defense had its moments, from creating four takeaways and five sacks to overcoming Dre Greenlaw\u2019s ejection<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After playing their first road game since the season-opening win over the Rams in Australia, the 49ers will next play their first prime-time game since that opener. Next Monday night at home, they will face the Washington Commanders, who are 1-3-1 after tying the New York Giants Sunday.<\/p>\n

The 49ers owned a 21-13 halftime lead after perhaps their most chaotic first half since a 2019 thriller in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

The second half started in stunning fashion, too, as Renardo Green notched his second interception of the game off Darnold. That turnover, unlike those in the first half, yielded neither a touchdown nor any points, as Pi\u00f1eiro missed a 52-yard field goal attempt wide left.<\/p>\n

The 49ers\u2019 lead got trimmed to 21-16 when Myers made his third field-goal attempt, this one from 43 midway through the third quarter.<\/p>\n

Purdy\u2019s first interception since the season opener\u2019s first half in Australia was the 49ers\u2019 second turnover of the game. It came on a third-down pass to Jacob Cowing, and that Nehemiah Pitchett pick would set up a go-ahead, 16-yard touchdown catch-and-run by the Seahawks\u2019 Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who juked Fred Warner and Malik Mustapha in the open field to give Seattle a 23-21 lead 5:52 remaining.<\/p>\n

49ers turnover No. 3 came when Deebo Samuel coughed up the ball on a third-quarter stumble toward the left sideline, after being tripped up by Drake Thomas; Samuel injured his right leg or hamstring en route to his first lost fumble since 2024. The Seahawks converted it into Jason Myers\u2019 fourth field goal of the game, a 48-yarder for a 26-21 lead 3:02 until the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

All three 49ers touchdowns in the first half came after Seahawks turnovers, and the most stunning came when rookie defensive tackle Gracen Halton forced a George Holani fumble at the goal line and pounced on the loose ball to celebrate his first career touchdown.<\/p>\n

Halton disengaged from center Jalen Sundell and swiped the ball free with his right hand. Seattle got pinned down there after a Corliss Waitman punt was downed at the 4-yard line by Ashtyn Davis, but only after Siran Neal\u2019s touchback-saving tip from the 1.<\/p>\n

Seattle\u2019s second turnover came courtesy of Fred Warner. Down 10-7, Warner took matters into his own hands, punching the ball from Emmanuel Wilson\u2019s grasp to create in a fumble that Malik Mustapha recovered at the Seattle 11-yard line. McCaffrey scored a go-ahead touchdown run on the next snap, zipping past left-side blocks from Connor Colby, Trent Williams and Evans.<\/p>\n

But with that 14-10 lead in hand, things got out of hand with Greenlaw\u2019s sideline shenanigans. He first delivered a shoulder-to-shoulder late hit on a Darnold scramble, and as Darnold careened into the bench, Greenlaw got swarmed by Seahawks and headbutted a helmet-less Ernest Jones Jr. to merit a disqualification.<\/p>\n

Sacks by Halton and Osa Odighizuwa stalled that Seahawks drive and Myers\u2019 50-yard field goal cut the 49ers\u2019 lead to 14-13 with 1:56 remaining in the first half.<\/p>\n

Converting takeaways into touchdowns was the first-half theme when it came to scoring.<\/p>\n

The Seahawks\u2019 first turnover came when Renardo Green intercepted Darnold\u2019s third-down pass on their initial possession. That set up Brock Purdy\u2019s 2-yard touchdown pass to Evans, who had a third-down conversion catch the previous play.<\/p>\n

The Seahawks answered once Cowing opted against a fair catch and muffed a punt at the 35. The ball went through Cowing\u2019s hands a split second before he was drilled by Pritchett. Former 49ers tight end Eric Saubert emerged from a scrum with the ball, and the Seahawks scored the equalizer six snaps later on a 2-yard touchdown run by Emmanuel Wilson.<\/p>\n

The 49ers, however, emerged from this chaotic game with a two-game lead in the NFC West.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2013 An NFC West prize fight broke out here Sunday, complete with touchdowns, turnovers, taunting, tie scores…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[13734,949,402,181,752,101,296,103,102,6427,104,106,105,94685,127],"class_list":["post-493097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-49ers-hq","tag-football","tag-inside-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-nfl","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-seattle-seahawks","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-social-alert","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}