The 49ers won their third consecutive Thursday night visit to Seattle, beating the Seahawks 36-24 to move into a tie atop the NFC West.
Brock Purdy completed 18-of-28 passes for 255 yards and three touchdowns, two to George Kittle and one 76-yarder to Deebo Samuel.
Samuel finished with 102 yards on three catches and Kittle added 58 yards on five receptions.
Rookie Isaac Guerendo‘s 99 yards on 10 carries led the Niners in rushing after Jordan Mason left with a shoulder injury. Guerendo broke loose for a 76-yard run to ice the game on the 49ers’ final drive.
Malik Mustapha, also a first-year player, intercepted Geno Smith on the game’s opening drive, and fellow rookie Renardo Green added his own pick in the fourth quarter to set up a 49ers touchdown.
Here’s what coach Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers’ players said after the win:
On concern about not having enough players:
Toward the end, on that last possession, Taylor, he got hurt, so I was afraid that we were down to our last one with Isaac, especially when get got that long one, it was smart of him to give that touchdown to Juice. But I did get worried right then before that, though we had enough guys, especially with Deebo being able to help out.
On Mason’s injury:
He thought he was gonna be all right, went back in and it just hurt him too much so he went out.
On Purdy’s TDs to Kittle:
The first one was awesome, That was a long third down. Obviously struggling in the red zone to make a big play like that. I think it was third and goal from I want to say the 10, but that was huge. It was a dime right in the corner. Was a hell of a route and catch by George.
On the challenge:
By Hamp (Brian Hampton) because he said you could tell by how the guy’s hand moved that the ball hit him and that’s all he saw. But he can 100 percent see the ball, but he said you could tell how the hand moved and with it being Thursday Night Football, I thought for sure they’d have a bunch of camera angles.
We’ve been talking about how these two losses are a reminder of how the NFL works, and I think we got a little spoiled in that way, just human nature of sometimes feeling too relaxed. And you can never feel too relaxed.
On Guerendo’s slide at the end:
I don’t think he slid, and that’s what he’s claiming. I think 21’s a fast player and he got him a little bit there, then I think I’ll see it. You guys saw it, but it ended up working out better for us.
On special teams and the Seahawks’ return TD:
I thought special teams made some plays today. They got a fumble for us, a huge recovery. … Last week, they scored a touchdown with a blocked kick return for a touchdown. I thought we didn’t have a great kickoff and from what I saw live, we had an unblocked guy who missed a tackle and they hit a lane so we got to get better at tackling.
On his touchdown catch:
I really wasn’t even looking at the safety. At the beginning, you know, I kind of had to fake block the outside linebacker and he fell off, and then I see the ball in the air and once the ball is in the air, we’re always taught to attack it.
On whether this game was more their style:
We feel like every game is our game if we don’t turn the ball over, like if we don’t beat ourselves, you know it’s kind of hard to give a game away. I feel like if we don’t turn the ball over and manage the clock like we normally do and run the ball well and hit passes here and there, I feel like we’re pretty good.
On whether there was more urgency this game:
We obviously want to bring a high sense of urgency every game, but when your backs are against the wall, it kind of brings it out of you and I’m just glad when the momentum swung there, we stuck with it. And that was kind of the message all week. We got the win.
On hanging in as the Seahawks counterpunched:
We just talked about good or bad, keep that same even-keel, next-play mentality and it was crucial to do that.
On the secondary:
I think our back end probably had one of their best games, and we needed it.
On having some time off and facing the Chiefs next:
This was a big one to get and now we have a little time to get some guys healthy. We’ve got a long road ahead and it starts with the team that we haven’t beat yet since I’ve been here. So definitely trying to get the monkey off our back with that one.
On close calls for sacks:
It’s a finishing business, especially when you’re me and you’re expected to finish. There was a couple close ones there where it was almost ball out, game over. I just got to keep going.
On the urgency:
It’s still early, Week 6. So we can still right his ship without having to string off nine straight wins. Today was important, you know, every bit of a must-win without technically being a must-win.
On Guerendo’s run:
We’ve all been waiting to see IG kind of turn it loose. We know he’s a blazer. Reminds us a lot of Raheem Mostert. So thinking Bobby T said he’s an eyelash slower but I know the kid can run. He said he was going down on purpose, so we’ll give him that.
On the o-line:
We’re pretty much the same group outside of Puni, but Puni plays like he’s been here a few years so we got lucky with that. But we’re jelling. As long as we can keep Brock upright, he’s going to carve the defense up. As long as we can get the running backs to the line of scrimmage clean, they’re gonna fall forward, they’re gonna get yards.
On rematch with the Chiefs:
It’s not like we can get payback for losing in the Super Bowl. That ship has sailed. So it’s another game. We got to come ut and play complementary football. We know what type of them that is, one of the best teams in the league.
On facing Mike Macdonald’s defense again after Christmas loss to Ravens:
I just tried to keep it simple and obviously check the ball down when I needed to and hit my No. 1 or No. 2 in my progression as efficiently as I could and I just kept it simple. Last year in that game, I feel like I just got out of rhythm and I was trying to force stuff.
I saw him have leverage on the outside and I just needed to give him some space. He did a great job of breaking down and being at the right depth and the landmark, and he’s really good at that. So for me, it’s just trusting and laying it on the sideline, knowing that my guy can go get it and the fact that he kept his two feet in was crazy. … Both touchdowns were just a trust factor.
On the rookies:
For those guys to show up on Thursday night, a primetime game like that , it means a lot to all of us as a team.
On the rookies:
We talked about it during the week, it being a must-win and all those type of things and the gravity of the game, and to have your young guys, rookies coming in and making those type of plays to help win a game was so big. Really happy for them, happy for our team finding a way to win.
On if the shaky second half started feeling familiar:
1,000 percent. Yeah, it sucks, but yeah, it was something that felt familiar for sure. I’m like, ‘Hey, we can go one of two ways right here. We can stand tall in a hostile environment in the game that we know that we got to get, or we can settle for exactly how we’ve been doing, how we’ve been playing the last couple weeks or the last couple losses we’ve had.’ And that’s what I’m probably most proud about right now is the way we stood up.
On Mustapha’s interception.
Malik got his interception and he ran right out of bounds and I’m like ‘What are we doing? So you gotta learn.”
On D.K. Metcalf:
We made his life hard for for most of the game and I know he got some on us, but we got more.
On the back-and-forth nature:
I think all that does is reiterate that winning in the NFL is really difficult.
On Guerendo’s final run:
I was just really pumped that Coach Shanahan committed to our outside run. It wasn’t pretty the entire day but when they finally gave us a look that we’ve been practicing the entire week, we executed.
On sharing the confidence of experience.
Coach Shanahan has been here for eight years. We’ve had a lot of guys who’ve been here for four years-plus. We’ve been in a lot of big games. We’ve won a lot of big games, we’ve lost some big games and so we are experienced in the moment. We try our best and not like it’s too big for us. We have new guys in the huddle, whether it’s new to the team, from Saubert to Isaac, Chris Conely’s playing a lot this year. You just like when you have new guys out there and like when they feel the confidence from all the guys who’ve been through there before.
