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SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Storm clouds were everywhere you looked — but few were in the sky over Levi’s Stadium. The San Francisco 49ers opened NFL postseason Saturday with a fateful poignancy: They were a sizzling thunderstorm from a team that offered no respite. The Seattle Seahawks were just a good team, very good, but they were split like a bare tree in a lightning field in that first-round game, 41-23, just unable to contain the outbursts of one big playmaker after another. Want to beat the 49ers just before the Super Bowl? Bring your storm shelter.
This young Brock Purdy with his Romeo face, half smooth-cheeked boy and half man, was the main lightning slinger. He was just 23 years old and making an appearance in his first playoff game — and surely 71-year-old defensive ball coach Pete Carroll would find a way to put him under pressure. But there was just no way to do it. After a first ball that sailed because of the rainwater and a couple of missed opportunities in the first half that left the 49ers 17-16, Purdy began to get his feet firmly on the ground and point the ball to a variety of long striders. There were just too many pitches for Purdy to walk with the ball, too many gust talents in this massive storm from a Kyle Shanahan-amassed roster.
Keeping track of the 49ers’ multitude of attacks was a breakneck task: Who do you follow in their various actions? After a 1,000-yard season, was wideout Brandon Aiyuk their biggest threat? Or running back Christian McCaffrey, with whom they don’t happen to be on an 11-game winning streak, given his 12 touchdowns in that stretch? On the other hand, you didn’t dare take your eyes off Deebo Samuel or Elijah Mitchell or George Kittle with his seven points in his last four games. “Who are you stopping?” Carroll asked rhetorically.
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But for all of that, the ultimate X-factor was Purdy, who became the first rookie to account for four touchdowns in a playoff game, throwing for three points (along with 332 yards) and rushing for one. He was so calm and confident, yet so charged with his ability to maneuver his way out of trouble and keep plays alive with his legs, only to then smack a man in the hands with an off-script punch. “His lubricity,” Samuel called it. “It kind of makes us tired because we have to run around so much.”
Actually, the inexperience of Purdy, the last player picked in last year’s draft, should have been a problem for the 49ers to get around after losing Trey Lance and then Jimmy Garoppolo. Instead, his odd combination of calm and swagger only armed her more. When McCaffrey made a turn midway through the first quarter on that 68-yard run, it set up the game that established Purdy’s presence in the game. On the second and goal, Purdy shoulder-pivoted away from two fast-closing defenders, and instead of panicking and going blind or sideways, he climbed into the pocket and found an off-script throw to an oblique McCaffrey, who was in the end zone emerged from three yards. With five minutes left in the opening quarter, the 49ers were 10-0 up just like that.
In the second half, when he was a near-perfect 9-on-11 passing game, Purdy made similar plays over and over again. The 49ers’ 7min 45s drive early in the third quarter felt like a slap in the mouth and put them back the 23-17 lead. And then they benefited from a turnover.
In third and 14th place, 49ers defenseman Charles Omenihu smacked and smacked Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith away from him, and Nick Bosa covered it up. “The ball was on the ground for a while, and I was like, ‘Please jump on it,'” Shanahan said.
Again it was Purdy who ripped up the scoreboard – having wriggled out of the disaster. As the 49ers balanced on the Seahawks 7, linebacker Bruce Irvin clutched Purdy’s jersey. Purdy spun around, made a jagged move to the right and threw it at Mitchell, hitting him square in the hands for the score. (“It was my last reading,” Purdy said.) Additionally, he completed a two-point conversion with a nifty fake for McCaffrey followed by a ball for Kittle. Suddenly it turned into an ugly runaway.
How about for one last pretty execution, how about Purdy on that naked rollout to his left to find Samuel alone while the entire Seahawks defense and stadium thought all the action was on the other side? Samuel hit his otherworldly acceleration for a 74-yard scoring play set up by a massive block from Aiyuk that walled the sideline.
Equally thunderous for the 49ers were their top-notch defense and brute running game (181 yards). “There are so many playmakers, they don’t even have to be headliners,” said full-back Kyle Juszczyk.
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There was another character in all of this: the actual storms. The weather played a role of its own, piling up in heaps of dark, drifting clouds over the edge of the stadium. At one point during the audition, the field looked like it was covered by a shower curtain. All week the “atmospheric flow” took giant dragon bites off local shores, but the 49ers practiced outside in a display of proud, defiant bravery. Defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans boasted, “They didn’t let the weather elements dictate how they felt. … It’s a really good sign when your boys are made of the right stuff.” Kittle, the narrow goalman who went without power at his house for four days, actually said after a midweek practice, “We had fun today at the rain and in the cold.”
The weather ebbed and waved from hour to hour. Field workers attempted to protect the natural grass with massive dryers and tarps, but much of Saturday morning pelted down lateral rain, replaced by dense fog and shifting winds that blew the banners straight in one direction and left them limp in another , just for sunspots to appear. Uncertainty reigned over everything from the type of boots to reports that teams should be prepared for a blitz to disrupt the fourth quarter. Despite this, the loyal 49ers pitched tents in the parking lots and waved dirty flags on metal poles. The best-selling black market items were plastic ponchos.
But in the final quarter, the weather appeared to be just a mild backdrop to the 49ers’ stormy attack itself.