The 49ers got back in the win column on Sunday, beating the Bears 38-13.
They dominated the first half, scoring on four of their first five possessions and holding the Bears to just four total yards of offense at the break. The defense relented some in the second half, but the Bears never even made it a two-score game.
Brock Purdy was 20-for-25 passing for 325 yards and two touchdowns. He was shaken up after a high hit in the fourth quarter, but returned to the game one play later.
Isaac Guerendo rushed 15 times for 78 yards and two touchdowns before going to the locker room early with a foot injury. Patrick Taylor Jr. spelled him and scored a fourth-quarter touchdown, totaling 25 yards on seven carries.
George Kittle did not score, but he made up almost half of Purdy’s passing yards, catching six balls for 151 yards. Jauan Jennings caught two touchdowns from Purdy and had seven receptions for 90 yards.
Here’s what coach Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers had to say after the win:
Kyle Shanahan
On Guerendo’s injury:
We’re not sure. Possible foot sprain. X-rays for sure didn’t show anything, so we’re looking into more tomorrow.
On the win:
We had to step it up today. Wanted to play well and I thought we did play well. Most important thing was getting a win and we got it done.
On Guerendo:
I thought Isaac looked real good today. Ran hard, affected the game in the pass game and hopefully we get some good news on his injury.
On his concern about Purdy after he was down:
They talked to me in my headset and stuff and by the time he got to the sideline, they told me it was good, so it was short-lived.
On Talanoa Hufanga’s return:
I was just pumped to get Huf out there in uniform. … To get him out there, just the emotions of it, I thought, sparked our team.
On Patrick Taylor:
When we’ve given Patrick runs, going back to the preseason and in practice, he’s a good runner. He hits the right spots, he runs hard. So he’s a guy who can definitely help us.
On whether he tried to fire the team up pregame:
Every time you go into a meeting as a coach, you want to figure out something that’s going to affect the players. … It’s very rarely some special words change how guys play, but we did talk about the importance of this where we were at. Regardless of the result, I wanted to make sure that we came out today and just showed grit. We wanted to fight and these last two weeks, just not making it a game was something we weren’t proud of. We were ready to battle today.
On building momentum and Thursday’s game against the Rams:
We feel good right now. We played well. It’s gonna come fast, and the only way we’re gonna really enjoy today is if we take care of business on Thursday, and then we’ll have three days to kind of enjoy it and come back and deal with our last three games. But if you don’t take care of business on Thursday, not much to celebrate about today.
On winning in a must-win game:
We got gritty dudes all over, but when you have your backs against the wall like we have had, that’s when it’s your opportunity to show that your team can still play with some grit, your team can have some resilience. When we’ve been in those situations this year where we needed to, we haven’t. I think we’ve done it a lot in the past, so we know how it looks and we know what it feels like but the opportunities that we’ve had this year, we haven’t gotten that done.
On rumors he could be traded to Chicago:
I don’t know why (rumors) come out, but I don’t want to be any place in the world more than here and my family feels the same, if not stronger.
On Kittle:
When you can get George the ball versus the right look, I think everyone sees how explosive he is. We just gave him some crap for getting tackled inside the 5 twice, but he was unbelievable today.
On Purdy:
He’s been battling. He’s been awesome in practice, he’s been great in meetings and I was real happy for today because he played his ass off and he was decisive in everything he did, and he’s always a competitor.
On the first half:
That first half went pretty well. Having I think over 300 yards in a half and our defense gave up (four). I don’t think anyone in the leag’s done that in a half this year on both sides (of the ball).
On the start:
We got the ball first and we scored and then our defense got it right back to us and it kind of went that way the whole half.
Fred Warner
On the game:
We just got back to being us, honestly. The product we were putting on the field the last couple weeks just wasn’t us.
On the start:
The offense came out and scored right away and then we went out there on defense and got those stops early on and played a great half of football.
On whether they practiced better this week:
We practiced really well in those weeks. It just didn’t translate on the field. Today you saw it translate with execution, you know, when it mattered most.
On the one-game focus:
We just wanted one win. That was the goal today, to just get one win. And then now, obviously we got that, and it’s the same minset this week, just one win. Thursday night against a divisional opponent and we gotta win in the division. We gotta win all of these, honestly, but it’s just about one game.
On potentially having Greenlaw back Thursday:
I’ve been waiting for that moment the entire season. To potentially have him out there again with me, it means everything.
On the mentality the rest of the season:
We’re just treating it one week at a time, it’s a one-game mentality.
Brock Purdy
On the win:
Where we’re at, every week matters. We all know that. So I think the biggest thing was just getting some energy and momentum. This league is hard, it’s tough. And if you don’t have momentum or energy, man, or belief within building, it can be really tough.
On his message to the team last night:
Just trying to keep it real and remind guys this isn’t easy. This job isn’t for everybody but who we have in this building, we have what it takes. We’ve shown that the last couple years and we just got to dig deep and find ourselves. I think we did, I think guys responded.
On Kittle:
You get the ball in his hands like that and he can get all the YAC after. He’s just so explosive. For where he’s at in his career to continue to put up those kind of numbers and be that dominant, it’s a pretty sweet thing.
On the hit that took him out of the game
It was just a weird hit. My body was in an awkward position and, you know, for me, never really been in a situation like that. So I was just like sort of in shock. I felt some stuff within my body and I was just letting myself cool down. That’s why I went out for a play and just made sure I was being smart about it and I was fine.
GEORGE KITTLE
On team meeting Saturday night:
“Kyle doesn’t always have players speak but he used to when he first started as a head coach, he’d have them talk about why they play and what’s important to them. D-Mo got up and talked. He looks loud on the field but leads by example. When you give guys like that an opportunity to speak in front of the team, it means a lot, to everybody watching and listening in that room. … He plays the game the right way
“Then for Brock to get in front of the team, which he doesn’t always do … But just for him to talk, it doesn’t really matter what they say. There’s no magical rah-rah speech. Just the fact it means enough to them to ask them to speak, that in itself is definitely motivation.”
On galvanized by this win
“The last couple of weeks hasn’t felt like we’ve been playing Niner football, whether that’s flying to the football, turnovers, converting on third down, the energy. We have not felt like ourselves. We wanted to play off each other. Like, ‘Hey offense, you take care of what you have to take care of. Every drive, try to score, don’t turn the ball over. And defense will feed off us.’ We kind of felt that.”
“I was pumped. Coach Shanahan called a hell of a game but we also executed on offense. And when our defense gets six sacks, that’s awesome. We’re finally playing team football, and that’s the Niner football we want to put on tape. The guys really responded well.”
On first catch as 33-yard screen and how often it’s been run:
“In the last five years, twice; (other time) was probably in 2021.”
How did that show how you’d exploit the Bears defense:
“The defense they’ve had, and Eberflus was with the Colts when we played them in 2021, they do a lot of stuff with their defensive ends, they do ‘pirate stunts’ to increase their pressure. We knew if we caught them in one on a screen, they’d be completely out of whack. The defensive end played up field. The way they got up field, kind of like how our defense does, we thought we could exploit that, and we did a good job at that.”
On guerendo
“My first question when he was going to start: How well can he catch, because that’s a big thing in our offense. He proved that today. That catch down in the sun, you can’t see anything in the corner, and he caught it, which was awesome. Brock gave him an opportunity on that. All I’ve preached to Isaac: Run really, really fast when you get the football and you’ll get a lot of yards.”
On playoff hopes
“We still have everything in front of us to play for. I know certain things may need to happen but if we win every single game, we’ll put ourselves in position to either win our division or sneak our way into playoff contention.
“Everyone just focus on this one week. Everyone lock in. Forget the whole season, whether you played like crap, whether you had missed opportunities, whether you had a bunch of touchdowns, just flush all that and focus on this one game and we’ll live with the results.
“We ran the heck out of the ball, Brock got in a rhythm, and we played team football. Everybody in this building still believes.”
On near first-half single-game record:
“I was four yards off. I had no idea how many yards I had until somebody told me in the third quarter. I thought I was sitting on 80. It was a fun surprise at the end of the game.
On Brock
“He’s very comfortable in this offense now, and I’ve been in it eight years, so it’s fun to be back there and know, ‘Hey in this coverage, I’m getting the ball no matter what, so when I turn my head, the ball is in my chest.’ We’re pretty much in synch right now. It could be an Iowa thing.”
On one-catch game last Sunday in Buffalo:
“Last week, toward our game plan, I thought I’d have 100 yards and two touchdowns, and that’s just not the way it happens. I very much believe in football gods, that if you just go out and play your best no matter what happens receiving wise, the ball will eventually find you, and that’s what happened today. I try to be as reliable as I can for Kyle and this organization. Kyle just called the plays today and I found myself open on all of them.
“… I was waiting to have the best game of my life last week. I couldn’t wait. It doesn’t happen sometimes. It is what it is.”
On 2024 rallying vibe:
“The message was we need to play with more of a sense of urgency and play desperate, because you haven’t really sensed that. Two years ago, we went on a nine-game win streak and every play everyone was scratching, clawing and fighting for everything. … That was the message: Put it all out there, because we have the play makers, the play callers, and everything to win games. But we have to do it out of desperation, like if we don’t win, our season potentially is over. That desperation fuels guys in different ways.”
Originally Published:
Source: www.mercurynews.com