{"id":508334,"date":"2026-10-26T11:42:45","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T11:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/508334\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T11:42:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T11:42:45","slug":"49ers-studs-and-duds-brock-purdys-turnovers-bad-secondary-doom-niners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/508334\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers’ Studs and Duds: Brock Purdy\u2019s turnovers, bad secondary doom Niners"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 49ers<\/a> are heading into their bye week<\/a> on a seriously sour note<\/a>, as they squandered a winnable game in Atlanta with self-inflicted wounds, offensive line breakdowns, a no-show from the defensive line and backbreaking turnovers to fall 29-20.<\/p>\n

In short: The Niners beat themselves.<\/p>\n

The secondary was a horror show. Jack Jones couldn\u2019t stop grabbing jerseys until he got benched, while Ji\u2019Ayir Brown took atrocious tackling angles. Up front, Connor Colby was a turnstile, wiping out big runs and surrendering free-running sacks. The offense had four turnovers, including two from Brock Purdy. And they even added a missed extra point for good measure.<\/p>\n

And yet this team had every opportunity to win. If only they could get out of their own way.<\/p>\n

Here are the studs and suds from a real thud of a performance:<\/p>\n

Studs \ud83d\udcaa<\/p>\n

Christian McCaffrey \u2022 Running Back
Niners coach Kyle Shanahan saw that Atlanta had two rookie linebackers, looked at his wide receiver depth chart and made a simple call before the game started: He\u2019d use as much McCaffrey as possible.<\/p>\n

The issue? McCaffrey really only played in the first and fourth quarters.<\/p>\n

McCaffrey had 39 yards and a touchdown on seven carries, the score coming on an opening-drive fourth-and-goal leap into the endzone. He added six receptions on seven targets for 61 yards, highlighted by a 24-yard chunk catch and a tough 6-yard conversion to the 1-yard line in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

George Kittle \u2022 Tight End
Kittle was Purdy\u2019s cleanest chain-mover and a key blocker in the run game. He sealed the perimeter on McCaffrey\u2019s early rushes, executed routes with perfect timing on third downs, and torched Jessie Bates III for a 20-yard strike over the middle in the third quarter. Kittle hauled in eight of 10 targets for 89 yards. Yeah, there was a fumble late, but the game was over by then.<\/p>\n

James Thompson Jr. \u2022 Defensive Tackle
Thompson provided immediate interior disruption upon entering the rotation on a day when the Niners\u2019 defensive line was a non-factor. On Atlanta\u2019s opening possession of the third quarter, he single-handedly anchored the front against the run: shedding his block to drop Bijan Robinson for a 1-yard gain, rallying to tackle Kyle Pitts for a 2-yard gain and plugging the A-gap against Khalil Herbert on consecutive snaps. If only the Niners\u2019 defensive line had followed his lead.<\/p>\n

Jordan Watkins \u2022 Wide Receiver
As the Niners\u2019 primary perimeter option, which isn\u2019t saying much, Watkins delivered San Francisco\u2019s most explosive passing plays, finishing with three catches for 56 yards on six targets. He posted a nice 15-yard over route in the third quarter and tracked down a 35-yard deep post in the fourth. You have to ding him after he had an acrobatic 23-yard touchdown overturned on review, but his downfield vertical separation created the offense\u2019s few clean, deep windows.<\/p>\n

Fred Warner \u2022 Linebacker
Warner\u2019s sideline-to-sideline range produced multiple tackles for loss. He remains as good as it gets at the position \u2014 Robinson had only 63 yards on 20 carries Sunday.<\/p>\n

Duds \ud83d\udcc9
\n<\/p>\n

Jack Jones \u2022 Cornerback
Jones experienced a defensive meltdown on the boundary. Thrust into the lineup by Upton Stout\u2019s shoulder injury, which shifted Deommodore Lenoir to the slot, Jones was benched by the end of the game for a rookie.<\/p>\n

He was flagged for illegal contact on second-and-20, blew an underneath assignment on a 19-yard Robinson conversion and surrendered a crushing 20-yard defensive pass interference penalty on a critical third-quarter third-and-8. And those were just the highlights. The Falcons targeted him for easy first downs on every extended scoring drive.<\/p>\n

Ji\u2019Ayir Brown \u2022 Free Safety
Brown was brutal on Sunday. Atlanta systematically hunted his zone depth: He whiffed on a perimeter tackle against Robinson, was consistently late (at one point Malik Mustapha made a tackle on Brown\u2019s side of the field, despite having to run 30 yards further than Brown, who was not blocked) and posted no-show efforts to tackle, such as the one that came on an erased 31-yard run from Robinson. Atlanta targeted him early and often, and was rewarded for that decision. It was a benchable performance amongst so many this season for Brown.<\/p>\n

Brock Purdy \u2022 Quarterback
Purdy had two game-killing errors in this game. Did he have much help? No. Does a quarterback get that benefit of the doubt? No.<\/p>\n

In the third quarter, an off-script scramble drill resulted in a totally unacceptable throw that was intercepted by Bates at the 10-yard line.<\/p>\n

Purdy then sealed the loss with 2:42 remaining, locking onto Watkins on third-and-9 that was read perfectly for a game-sealing 29-yard interception by rookie Kendal Daniels.<\/p>\n

The Niners needed an MVP performance from Purdy to win this game. That, for starters, means no turnovers. He didn\u2019t come close to providing it.<\/p>\n

Connor Colby \u2022 Left Guard
Colby struggled mightily across the interior. Maason Smith bullied him into the pocket for a first-half pass deflection; he wiped out a 10-yard McCaffrey run with an offensive holding flag; and then he surrendered an unblocked pass rush to Za\u2019Darius Smith on fourth-and-10 for a four-yard sack that forced a turnover on downs. The Niners have a legitimate left guard problem, again, with Colby regressing after a nice start for the second straight year.<\/p>\n

Brandin Cooks \u2022 Wide Receiver
In the fourth quarter, a third-and-9 slant route was all off with Purdy, falling incomplete. Then, trailing 26\u201320 with less than three minutes left in the game, Cooks committed a devastating false start on third-and-4 at the Atlanta 47, setting up the third-and-9 interception that put the game out of reach.<\/p>\n

Eddy Pi\u00f1eiro \u2022 Kicker
It\u2019d be ridiculous to suggest that Pi\u00f1eiro\u2019s extra-point miss in the fourth was the reason the Niners lost this game, but it sure didn\u2019t help. Sunday was Pi\u00f1eiro\u2019s fourth missed extra point this season. Remember when the Niners quizzically gave the kicker \u2014 signed off the street in-season in 2025 \u2014 a four-year extension this past offseason? Well, if they cut him now, he\u2019s a $6 million dead-cap hit for next year, when the Niners are a bit cap-strapped. Great work, everyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 49ers are heading into their bye week on a seriously sour note, as they squandered a winnable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[184,7,402,12268,181,752,101,296,103,102,197,198,104,106,105,200,127,1326],"class_list":["post-508334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-inside-sports","tag-inside-the-san-francisco-49ers","tag-latest-headlines","tag-nfl","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-santa-clara","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-south-bay","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508334","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=508334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}