according to Opta Stats<\/a>.<\/p>\nPurdy finished 18 of 31 for 262 yards, two touchdowns and the two picks, while McCaffrey had 114 total yards on 21 touches. Hurts finished 20 of 35 for 168 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions, while Saquon Barkley had 131 total yards on 31 touches.<\/p>\n
McCaffrey outshines Barkley<\/p>\n
Two of the best running backs in the league were on display, and while Barkley had the most success early, McCaffrey showed off his receiving skills on the biggest play of the game.<\/p>\n
McCaffrey had been bottled up, with only 54 yards rushing and receiving through three quarters, but he broke free and hauled in the touchdown pass from receiver Jennings on a trick play, giving the 49ers the lead and leaving the Eagles\u2019 crowd sitting in stunned silence.<\/p>\n
The Eagles had success getting the ball to Barkley early, as he had 91 yards on 16 touches in the first half. But their offense lulled itself to sleep, and the 49ers held Barkley to 30 yards on 13 touches in the second half. Purdy\u2019s second interception seemed to give the Eagles and their crowd some life, and they used Barkley and Hurts runs to drive for a go-ahead field goal. Barkley took a big hit from safety Marques Sigle and came off for the last two plays of the possession.<\/p>\n
McCaffrey then had an 11-yard catch and 10-yard run before catching his 4-yard touchdown pass to give the 49ers the lead for good. \u2014 Vic Tafur, 49ers beat writer<\/p>\n
Jennings\u2019 magical pass<\/p>\n
Jennings has a perfect passer rating when targeting McCaffrey. The 49ers receiver, who started as a quarterback at the University of Tennessee, hit McCaffrey on a perfectly placed touchdown pass to open the 49ers\u2019 big fourth quarter. Jennings also threw a touchdown to McCaffrey in Super Bowl LVIII, taking a pass behind the line of scrimmage from Purdy on one side of the field before throwing to McCaffrey on the other side.<\/p>\n
On Sunday\u2019s score, Moore took a jet sweep handoff from Purdy before pitching the ball to Jennings, who was heading in the opposite direction. That gave McCaffrey an opportunity to escape coverage, and he made a nice over-the-shoulder grab on Jennings\u2019 pass for the score. \u2014\u00a0Matt Barrows, 49ers beat writer<\/p>\n
Robinson gives 49ers a spark<\/p>\n
Demarcus Robinson, who never topped 44 receiving yards this season, had 81 at halftime. That included a 61-yard catch and run \u2014 the 49ers\u2019 longest play from scrimmage this season \u2014 on the second play of the game and a 2-yard touchdown to cap off San Francisco\u2019s opening drive.<\/p>\n
Robinson, who started in place of injured Ricky Pearsall, finished with 111 receiving yards. It was his highest total since he had 128 yards as a member of the Baltimore Ravens in Week 11 of the 2022 season. He, Pearsall, Jacob Cowing and Jordan Watkins are the only wide receivers under contract for the 2026 season. \u2014\u00a0Barrows<\/p>\n
49ers\u2019 defense does just enough<\/p>\n
The 49ers were last in the league in sacks in the regular season, and though they somehow had the lead late Sunday, the inability to hurry the quarterback almost did them in. The Eagles were down to fourth-and-5 just before the two-minute warning, but Hurts had a lot of time to wait for tight end Dallas Goedert to break free across the middle for a 15-yard completion.<\/p>\n
But the 49ers\u2019 defense did not break, and on fourth-and-11, Hurts threw the ball into a crowd of 49ers defenders in the middle of the field, and the ball bounced harmlessly to the ground.<\/p>\n
The battered 49ers \u2014 who have been without Nick Bosa, Fred Warner and first-round pick Mykel Williams most of the season \u2014 had their only sack on that final drive, for a 1-yard loss. Already playing two starting linebackers who weren\u2019t on the roster a month ago, they also lost safety Ji\u2019Ayir Brown to a hamstring injury early. \u2014 Tafur<\/p>\n
Eagles\u2019 offense underwhelms again<\/p>\n
The Eagles\u2019 offense underachieved all season, and it underachieved when it mattered most Sunday. The offense went without a touchdown on its final seven drives, including four punts. Philadelphia could not mount a go-ahead drive in the final three minutes. Hurts, who has what owner Jeffrey Lurie calls \u201cthe clutch gene,\u201d came up 21 yards short. A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith had costly drops. Hurts could not escape for a run. The Eagles burned a timeout after getting out of the huddle late. The problems that plagued the Eagles all year were apparent late in the game, and they\u2019re now left answering for their own failure to fix them. \u2014 Zach Berman, Eagles beat writer<\/p>\n
Offseason questions loom<\/p>\n
The biggest question about the Eagles\u2019 offseason will be what happens at offensive coordinator, with first-year play-caller Kevin Patullo overseeing an offense that had its least-productive and least-efficient season in Sirianni\u2019s five years. If the hope was they could flip a switch in the postseason, it didn\u2019t happen. They mustered only 19 points. It was the ninth time this season the Eagles failed to score in the 20s.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not entirely on Patullo \u2014 there were execution issues from players \u2014 but the Eagles invested more cash in their offense than any other team in the NFL. The expectation should be more than two touchdowns against an undermanned 49ers defense in the playoffs. There\u2019s something to be said about continuity for Hurts, although the Eagles replaced their coordinators after their last first-round exit in 2023. \u2014 Berman<\/p>\n
Mitchell\u2019s INTs not enough<\/p>\n
So much of the 2025 season for the Eagles has come down to what their defense could do \u2014 and couldn\u2019t do. That is also how it ended Sunday. Mitchell supplied two interceptions plus a forced fumble, but the Eagles failed to fully capitalize on the extra possessions.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the secondary gave up its fair share of explosive plays. Mitchell had a rough start to the game, which included a 61-yard reception and getting beaten inside for a touchdown on the 49ers\u2019 opening drive. San Francisco also scored a touchdown on a double-reverse pass. The Eagles retook the lead, 19-17, but the defense surrendered a 10-play, 66-yard touchdown drive with 2:54 left in the game. \u2014 Brooks Kubena, Eagles beat writer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Vic Tafur, Matt Barrows, Zach Berman and Brooks Kubena Christian McCaffrey caught two fourth-quarter touchdowns, including one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1418,69,4538,71,70,19587],"class_list":["post-84460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-nfl","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-san-francisco-49ers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}