SANTA CLARA — Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll stood at the podium outside the Levi’s Stadium visitor’s locker room. He was dripping with dejection.
The 49ers had just beaten his team 28-16 — a fifth straight win for San Francisco in what was once the NFL’s best (and perhaps fiercest) rivalry.
And what bothered Carroll most wasn’t the loss itself, but how the 49ers won the game.
“We had a chance,” Carroll said. “We just got big-played by their guys on offense.
“There was nothing special.”
The first play of the game, a 73-yard Christian McCaffrey run to the 2-yard line?
“That’s their favorite play,” Carroll said.
Deebo Samuel’s 54-yard touchdown catch over the top of the defense?
“A deep crosser… We saw it, we just didn’t play it right.”
George Kittle with a 44-yard touchdown catch and run?
“A play-action pass in heavy personnel — he’s been doing that his whole career.”
“There’s nothing new about those things,” Carroll said. “That’s the stuff we practiced all week… Those plays should not have happened.”
“They shouldn’t even have thrown those balls.”
This is what the 49ers have done to opponents this season: they don’t just beat them; they demoralize them.
And what’s most impressive about it is that the Niners don’t even mean to do it.
(Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
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Sunday, one could argue that the Niners didn’t even deserve such a heavy emotional response from Seattle.
And yet there was Carroll, at the podium, openly wondering how the plays the Seahawks practiced to stop all week turned into touchdowns.
Seattle is merely the latest team to be devoured by the 49ers winning combine. And Carroll’s undeniable frustration was massively tempered compared to Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf, who first broke part of the Seahawks’ bench by slamming his helmet and then started a brawl after grabbing, jostling, and yelling into Niners linebacker Fred Warner’s facemask twice after Warner’s game-sealing interception late in the fourth quarter.
“I don’t know what happened man. I told him ‘he tackles really well’ and for some reason, he didn’t like that,” Warner said. “It’s unfortunate — he’s gotta learn to keep his composure.”
Warner’s sarcasm aside, Carroll’s incredulity and Metcalf’s freak-out perfectly encapsulate what it’s like to play the Niners this season. They break teams.
Seattle isn’t the first team to feel this way after playing San Francisco. The way the Niners are playing, they likely won’t be the last, either.
And again, this was a game where the Niners didn’t even play all that well.
Yes, quarterback Brock Purdy threw for a new career high of 368 yards, completing 70 percent of his passes for a seventh straight game and tying his childhood idol, Dan Marino, with 12 games of a 110-plus passer rating in the first two seasons of a career.
But Purdy also tossed a few hospital balls over the middle of the field and miscommunicated with his receivers on a few other passes.
It wasn’t his finest game. Nor Brandon Aiyuk’s. Or the interior of the offensive line’s. Or head coach and offensive playcaller Kyle Shanahan’s, for that matter. The Niners left bunches of points on the field.
“We were pretty sloppy today,” McCaffrey said.
It wasn’t the defense’s finest game, either. Sprung into action at the last minute, Seahawks backup quarterback Drew Lock looked stunningly good for most of the game. With the Niners down top cornerback Charvarius Ward (groin injury) after the first series of the game, Seattle averaged a highly respectable 5.9 yards per play Sunday. That should have been more than good enough to win the game.
Except the Niners averaged 9.9.
(Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
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“It didn’t feel like our best game,” Warner said. “As a team we have to be more consistent. Today was a little sloppy throughout the game, but we still found a way to win.”
McCaffrey and Warner were right. We’ve seen the Niners’ best this season. Take your pick: Dallas in Week 5 or last week against Philadelphia.
It’d be impossible to say that the natural letdown stemming from last week’s win in Philly didn’t influence Sunday’s less-than-perfect performance in Santa Clara.
And yet when the final buzzer sounded, the Niners won, covered (depending on when you placed your bet), and left their opponent — the one that should know them better than any other — flummoxed.
That’s the kind of quality this team boasts. In a league that consistently finds ways to humble good teams, the Niners have learned their midseason lesson from three straight losses and have found a way to be great ever since.
There’s no other team on their level. (And don’t suggest Dallas — we saw the vast difference between those teams in October.)
The Niners’ B-game (or maybe C-game) is an A-game, even for playoff-contending teams.
That’s because there isn’t another team in the NFL that breaks the offensive huddle believing that that play — no matter how simple it is — can reach the end zone.
And if there is another one, the Niners are the only team where that thought isn’t delusional.
(Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
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“That’s our mindset on this team,” Purdy said. “We have guys across the board who can make anything happen at any time. .. We have guys who can score at any moment.”
Sunday’s win will end up being forgettable for San Francisco.
In fact, if this game has any staying power, it’ll stem from the things they did wrong, not the things they did right.
But Seattle won’t forget.
Just like Dallas didn’t.
Just like the Eagles won’t, either.
Countless teams can win games in the league. Even hapless Carolina has a victory this season. The Jets won on Sunday.
But when the 49ers beat you, they leave a mark. Physically, of course, but psychologically, too.
And the craziest thing about it is that they don’t even have to play their best to do it.
