PHILADELPHIA — The 49ers waited 11 months, but on Sunday, they finished their business with the Philadelphia Eagles.
And they didn’t just beat them — they beat them down.
This was a “Brotherly Shove” to the ground and a “Tush” kicking, for good measure.
Yes, the Niners were holding some grudges from last season’s NFC Championship Game loss. They talked trash right up to the opening kick.
“Obviously, we wanted some payback,” Nick Bosa said.
“I ain’t gonna lie, I was in that zone all week long,” Deebo Samuel said.
Then they went and walked the walk — right into the end zone six offensive possessions in a row.
So while the Niners’ brilliant three-phases victory will go into the record books as a 42-19 win, it was, in truth, much more than that.
It’s as impressive a performance as any team in the NFL has put on the field this season. These might be the two best teams in the NFL, but after Sunday, it’s clear that one is on a different level than the other.
It was a performance that will resonate for the remainder of the NFL season, a point of reference for anyone wondering if the Niners have what it takes to win the Super Bowl.
It was, in a word, a masterpiece.
Kyle Shanahan’s team has put some exceptional performances on tape over the last seven years, but given the level of competition, the raucous, hostile atmosphere, and the bad blood between these teams (which spilled over onto the field in less impressive ways Sunday), it’s hard not to put this game at the top of the list.
In the hometown of the great Joe Frazier, the 49ers became the league’s new heavyweight champion on Sunday. This is the team to beat. And we saw that team at its best.
The victory was made even more impressive by the team’s ability to fight through rough patches of play. Yes, those existed in this game. The Eagles are still an excellent football team, after all and this was a game that for a while featured the highest-level football I’ve seen since the Niners’ last trip to the Super Bowl in 2019.
And it looked like the Eagles were in full control after one quarter of play. The Niners’ offense couldn’t move the ball the first two times they touched it, going three-and-out twice. San Francisco entered the second quarter with minus-6 yards. The offense didn’t look like it was out for redemption, it looked like history was repeating.
Lucky for them, the Niners were holding strong on defense. Despite allowing Philadelphia to drive deep into San Francisco territory — once to the 8, another to the 21 — the 49ers held the Eagles to two field goals.
Then the fun started.
Down 6-0 on their first drive of the second quarter, the Niners’ offense began a heater that lasted for the rest of the game. Touchdown drives of 85 and 90 yards gave San Francisco a 14-6 lead at halftime. The second touchdown was textbook four-minute offense — 10 plays, taking three minutes and 59 seconds off the clock, leaving the Philadelphia offense with no chance to do anything in the 38 seconds that remained before halftime. It was a coach’s dream, situational football at its best.
That drive loomed even larger when the Niners took possession of the ball to start the second half and drove 75 yards to the end zone, capped by Samuel’s first touchdown of the game — a brilliant end-around run that used Philadelphia’s defensive aggressiveness against it.
But the Niners’ work wasn’t done. The Eagles had a counter-punch in them. And I mean that almost literally.
The Eagles found momentum down 21-6 after Niners’ linebacker Dre Greenlaw was penalized for a suplex tackle and then ejected for “punching” an Eagles’ staffer who was taunting him on the sideline. (Greenlaw grazed him, and the staffer — a member of the Eagles security team — was rightly ejected as well.)
“I was trying hardest not to lose my mind,” Niners coach Kyle Shanahan said. “Hopefully I didn’t embarrass myself too bad.”
With the free 15 yards and a juiced-up home crowd behind them, Philadelphia pushed their way into the end zone with their trademark quarterback sneak. For Eagles fans, who have watched their team come back from second-half deficits like clockwork this season, it was game on.
Samuel and the Niners’ defense had other ideas.
Philadelphia would be the ones embarrassed Sunday.
Samuel scored two more touchdowns — incomparable individual efforts in the open field that left dust and laid-out Eagles defenders in his wake. Between the 48- and 46-yard catch-and-run scores, Niners quarterback Brock Purdy orchestrated a 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drive.
The Niners’ offense never let its foot off the pedal. The defense’s mantra for years has been “all gas, no brakes,” but it was a team-wide mantra Sunday. It was a hot streak that would make you rich in Las Vegas.
Purdy and Brandon Aiyuk (who opened the scoring for the 49ers with a nice touchdown catch) said they had never been a part of a run like that. George Kittle said he’s only experienced something like that in Sin City. The NFL doesn’t experience runs like that often, either. The Niners’ six straight touchdown drives is the longest in the NFL since 2019.
The Niners left no doubt who the better team was on Sunday. And while there will be tough tests ahead for the Niners — San Francisco will play division rival Seattle next Sunday and arguably the AFC’s best team, the Baltimore Ravens, on Christmas Day — but this wasn’t “any given Sunday.”
No, the Niners set a high bar, then exceeded it against a great team in a hostile environment. If that’s a foreshadowing of what’s to come down the stretch, the Niners might be going on another heater. And it might just end in Las Vegas and Super Bowl LVIII.
Source: www.mercurynews.com