The 49ers defeated Seattle with ease despite not having their best offensive performance.
The San Francisco 49ers defeated the Seattle Seahawks 31–13 in a Thanksgiving divisional game to win their third straight game and raise their record to 8–3.
The significance of Thursday’s game stems from the 49ers’ two-game lead over the Seahawks atop the NFC West that they established with the victory. They also now possess the tiebreaker.
The 49ers’ offense put up 24 points in the first half and finished with a performance of over 30 points, even though they missed several opportunities to score more.
San Francisco’s defense held Seattle to 220 total yards and two field goal drives while giving up zero touchdowns.
These are the main conclusions from Sunday’s 49ers 31–13 victory over the Seahawks.
Physicality
The 49ers try to play with even more physicality than they usually do when they play divisional opponents.
That was the situation on Thursday, when the 49ers attempted to use Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel as their main offensive weapons. This resulted in a strong rush defense and some yardage after the catch in the air.
With 19 carries for 114 yards and two touchdowns on the ground and five passes for 25 yards on six targets in the air, McCaffrey saw a lot of action early on.
With seven receptions for 79 yards on nine targets, Samuel recorded his second-highest output of the season. The 49ers checked it down more frequently and also found the wideout occasionally between the second and third levels.
The 49ers’ offensive style was established by those two playmakers, who also made a lot of good runs to the left side and enforced their overall physicality.
They actually imposed their physicality so early on that Tariq Woolen of the Seahawks was benched for what looked to be tackle-related issues.
Missed Opportunities
Thursday night, the 49ers easily won 31–13 thanks to another 30+ point performance that they scored five times.
Despite their lackluster offensive performance—they squandered multiple opportunities—San Francisco prevailed 31–13.
The 49ers kicked a field goal in the red zone and punted three times in opposition territory during the game.
Now, the 49ers were able to stop Seattle deep in their territory on all three punt returns, and they eventually recovered the ball and scored touchdowns on their subsequent drives to salvage the opportunities.
However, the 49ers lost this game despite missing a few opportunities and letting Seattle sneak in with a pick-six early in the third quarter.
Nevertheless, the 49ers prevailed 31–13 with ease and scored a ton of points, demonstrating the potency of the offense.
Approaching the quarterback
For the third consecutive game, the 49ers front four dominated, continuously applying pressure to quarterback Geno Smith and sacking him six times.
Since acquiring Chase Young, the defensive line has been on a roll, and on Thursday, it continued as Nick Bosa recorded two sacks, Javon Hargrave had 1.5, and Arik Armstead had one of his own.
However, the 49ers did a great job of covering Brock Purdy, allowing just one sack, which occurred when the quarterback attempted to tuck and run up the middle in an attempt to escape a relatively clean pocket.
This game was going to come down to the trench play, and the 49ers were the obvious winners here as well, stopping the Seattle pass rush and giving Geno Smith discomfort the entire game.
Smith ultimately finished with 180 yards on 18/27 passing with no touchdowns and an interception.