Niners Nation
Week 16 couldn’t have gone better for the San Francisco 49ers. The Los Angeles Rams lost, opening the door for a potential No. 1 seed. The Carolina Panthers won, setting the stage for what would be a Wild Card matchup against both teams. Best of all, the 49ers won convincingly against a sneaky good offense in the Indianapolis Colts.
The 49ers’ offense was excellent, achieving a first down on 42 percent of their plays and excelling on third down and in the red zone. The defense settled in after halftime, and the special teams created a turnover. That’s not a bad recipe for a win. Let’s get into the Winners and Losers from Week 16.
Whenever you’re on the doorstep of scoring 50 points, it’s because your offensive line controlled the line of scrimmage. Brock Purdy was sacked one time. That play was on a backup tight end. Purdy wasn’t hit all night on 36 dropbacks.
The fact that Purdy only needed to scramble once is a sign of how dominant the offensive line was. Purdy faced pressure on only 22 percent of his dropbacks and was kept clean on 25 of his attempts. Purdy had 3.29 seconds to throw, on average, on the evening.
Christian McCaffrey and Brian Robinson haven’t had as much room to run as they did on Monday night, seemingly all season. The line paved the way with their second-highest yards before contact number all season.
McCaffrey only forced three missed tackles because everybody was blocked. McCaffrey wasn’t touched until 10 yards on a 12-yard carry in the second quarter. On his season-long rush of 24 yards, McCaffrey went untouched until he was 20 yards down the field.
Purdy went 25-for-34 for 295 yards and five touchdowns. He bailed out Jauan Jennings and Kendrick Bourne on one drive by scrambling for nine yards on 3rd & 10. Purdy had a pair of impressive throws in the second half. One didn’t count in the end zone to Jake Tonges. The other was near the goal line, when Purdy lofted the ball to Jennings instead of throwing his pass on a line.
Purdy is being paid like one of the top quarterbacks in the league. That means that when he faces pressure, he must overcome it. In this game, Purdy was 7-for-9 under pressure for 81 yards, five first downs, and a touchdown. When the Colts blitzed Purdy, he was 8-for-12 for 107 yards, with a pair of touchdowns and five first downs. Oh, and his average depth of target was 11.3, which was higher than when he was kept clean (11.0).
Purdy’s numbers look great in the box score. I don’t think that tells the entire story. Whenever the offense got behind the chains, the quarterback saved the day.
The broadcast made it a point to highlight some of Purdy’s throws being dangerous, but his target was George Kittle on those. Purdy was equally effective between the hashes...
