The San Francisco 49ers just kept their season alive with a 38-13 statement win over the Chicago Bears. Here are the 49ers' grades for this performance.
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00:00The San Francisco 49ers just kept their season alive with a 38 to 13 statement win over the
00:06Chicago Bears. Here are the 49ers grades for this performance. Quarterback. A plus. One of the best
00:14performances of Brock Purdy's career. He hit 80% of his throws, completed passes to seven different
00:21receivers, threw for 325 yards and two touchdowns, and posted a pass rating of 145.4. Finally,
00:30he stopped forcing passes to Debo Samuel, who has been killing the 49ers offense all season.
00:36More on him in a minute. Instead, Purdy threw six passes to George Kittle and eight passes to
00:42Jawan Jennings. Those are the two best receivers on the team and they should have been featured
00:46consistently all season. Last week, Kittle caught just one pass. Afterward, Purdy said his
00:53progressions didn't take him to Kittle. With all due respect, screw your progressions, Brock.
01:00Find your best players. And that's exactly what he did today. He's growing up and now he has four
01:06more games to show he's worth a multi-year contract that will make him one of the highest paid
01:10players in the NFL. Running backs. B plus. No offense to Christian McCaffrey, but the 49ers
01:18are better without him this season. In four games with him this season, they averaged just 15 points
01:23per game. In nine games without him, the 49ers are averaging 27.6 points per game. And that's
01:31because the 49ers get all of their playmakers involved when McCaffrey is out. Today, Isaac
01:36Garendo started the first game of his career and scored two touchdowns. He also had a 30-yard run,
01:42a 27-yard catch, and a 23-yard catch. He's a big play waiting to happen and he should have had a
01:47role in the offense all season. Unfortunately for the 49ers, he left the game with a foot injury
01:53after 15 carries. Perhaps he couldn't handle such a big workload. His replacement, Patrick Taylor
01:59Jr., gained just 25 yards on seven carries. The 49ers need Garendo to play this Thursday against
02:06the Rams. Fullback. C minus. Two targets, one catch, three yards. But hey, at least he didn't
02:16fumble at the goal line like last week. Wide receivers. B. Jawan Jennings was outstanding.
02:23Seven catches for 90 yards and two touchdowns. He deserves another contract extension. He already
02:29has outperformed the two-year deal the 49ers gave him this offseason. His counterpart, Debo Samuel,
02:35was terrible once again. Three targets, two catches, 22 receiving yards, plus five carries
02:41for a measly 13 rushing yards. The Niners averaged just 4.4 yards per play when they
02:46handed the ball or threw it to Samuel and averaged 7.9 yards per play when they handed it or threw
02:52it to anyone else. The Niners should have traded Samuel this past offseason. Instead, they
02:57restructured his contract in a way that will make him incredibly difficult to trade or release
03:02this coming offseason. Oops. Tight ends. A freaking plus. One of the best games of
03:10George Kittle's career. He had six catches for 151 yards. Last week, he had one catch for seven
03:18yards. Afterward, he told the media he hardly ran any routes and that he was open the few times he
03:26didn't have to block. Message received. Suddenly, Kyle Shanahan was calling all kinds of exotic
03:32screens and play action passes for Kittle. Shanahan should do that every week. Kittle
03:37is the greatest tight end in franchise history and somehow he's still in his prime. Offensive
03:43linemen. B plus. They didn't block particularly well in the run game, but they didn't have Trent
03:49Williams, Aaron Banks, or Ben Bartsch, and they still gave up just one sack. That's impressive.
03:55Defensive linemen. A. Leonard Floyd sacked Caleb Williams three times. Yatir Gross Matos sacked
04:02him twice and Malik Collins sacked him once. The Niners needed these three to step up while Nick
04:07Bosa is out and they did. Linebackers. A. They held Bears running back DeAndre Swift to just
04:1438 rushing yards and gave up zero rushing touchdowns. Next week, they most likely will
04:20get Dre Greenlaw back. Good news. Defensive backs. B. They gave up two touchdown passes and
04:27a quarterback rating of 116.9, but they also gave up just 134 yards through the air. Plus,
04:34Talonoha Funga returned from a wrist injury and the Niners defense improved dramatically with him
04:39on the field. The Niners need to find a way to resign him this offseason. He's the biggest
04:44playmaker in their secondary, even when he's playing with just one hand. Special teams.
04:51B. Jake Moody didn't miss any field goals, but he kicked two kickoffs short of the 20-yard line,
04:57and I don't know how he did that, which is a penalty. He needs to go this offseason.
05:03Coaches. A+. He stopped playing Kyle Juszczyk and instead mostly used one-back formations.
05:10He spread the ball around on offense and he called lots of screens and play-action passes,
05:16which gave Brock Purdy plenty of easy throws. Where the hell was this Kyle Shanahan all season?
05:22It seems like McCaffrey's knee injury may have brought out the best in Shanahan because he
05:27finally accepted that McCaffrey won't save him in the team this season and that he needs to build
05:31an offensive identity without him. And the offensive identity is a diverse, balanced attack
05:37featuring Kittle and Jennings, not Samuel and McCaffrey. If only Shanahan had this epiphany in
05:43September, the Niners might not be six and seven. Now let's see if he can keep it up this Thursday
05:49against the Rams, who beat the Bills today. The Bears are a sorry team that has lost seven games
05:55in a row while the Rams have won five of their past seven. The Niners will need another A-plus
06:00performance from Shanahan to win.