49ers

49ers QB Brock Purdy said the team’s defense stepping up has allowed them to become playoff contenders once again.

“No secret, we’ve had guys step up on defense, and have to play, whether they’re young guys or backups,” Purdy said, via SI’s Albert Breer. “That’s part of it. They’ve done a great job. We’ve found ways to win. Offensively, we are getting healthier and getting back to our original starting roster, which feels great. We are confident in that. I think, as a whole, we have to find ways to win and play complementary football. When the defense gets stops, we have to go score as an offense. It can be done. I still really do believe we have everyone in the right spot for us to make a run and achieve our goals.”

Cardinals

• ESPN’s Todd McShay mentions two teams that could make a quarterback change in the offseason: the Cardinals and Dolphins, given their situations with Kyler Murray and Tua Tagovailoa.
• Cardinals S Budda Baker was fined $17,389 for unnecessary roughness for a hit on a defenseless player.
• Cardinals HC Jonathan Gannon isn’t concerned about talks of him being on the hot seat and potentially losing his job: “Not a controllable for me. I didn’t hire myself, I’m not going to fire myself. Seriously, I know it’s going to come up. That’s the business we’re in. If you don’t want to be in that business, we laugh, we joke (about) ‘Go work somewhere else.’ I’m going to control the controllables for myself. Come to work and do the best job I can and try to get our team in the best position I can to win a game.” (Darren Urban)

Rams

Rams OLB Jared Verse believes the sky is the limit for the team after beating the Seahawks.

“I don’t think we have any ceiling,” Verse said, via SI’s Albert Breer. “I know a lot of people say that. I don’t know where ours is. We had a good game today. We held them to a lot of field goals, but we could’ve gotten off the field. We could’ve avoided all that. The touchdown they had, we could’ve avoided that. There are things we could’ve done to stop them. I don’t think there’s no ceiling. We could have shut them out completely, beat them 21-zip.”

Verse recounted the final drive where Seattle had to attempt a 61-yard field goal.

“You run that ball, it will get stopped. You pass it, we will get in your face. They were only able to get, what, 50 yards with the time they had left?” Verse said. “They were able to get it off quick, so we wouldn’t get sacks, but all that matters is we were able to pull off the win. That’s all that matters to us.”

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