San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy was on a roll after returning from a toe injury in Week 11, leading the Niners to six straight victories, with Kyle Shanahan's club averaging 35.6 points per tilt over that span. Then he ran into Mike Macdonald's Seattle Seahawks.
In the Week 18 faceoff, Purdy and the Niners were held out of the end zone, losing 13-3 to Seattle, a game in which the QB threw for just 127 yards -- his lowest output of the season -- plus an interception.
Ahead of Saturday's Divisional Round rubber match between the 49ers and Seahawks, Purdy is ready to bounce back.
"He just does a good job of making the quarterback have to earn everything," Purdy said of Macdonald's defense, via the Associated Press. "I feel like there's not a lot of easy gimme plays out there. You have to play quarterback for four quarters, be smart with the ball and go through your progressions truly. Then on top of that, the front, how they coach up the front with the push in the pocket, playing pretty deep to short on a lot of things and not allowing you to have a lot of explosive plays across the board. You have to go earn every single yard."
Saturday will mark the fifth game that Purdy will face a Macdonald-led defense -- the first coming on Christmas night of 2023, when Purdy threw four interceptions in a 33-19 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.
Since Macdonald became the Seahawks head coach in 2024, Shanahan's offense has averaged just 18.3 points per game in four tilts, the fewest among 16 head coaches that Shanahan has faced at least three times, including playoffs.
In their last meeting, Seattle held the Niners to three points, Shanahan's fewest in a game since Week 1, 2017, and 173 total yards, the fewest in the coach's career. Seattle has been able to slow down the 49ers' run game while playing two-deep safeties to take away deep passes.
"It's a huge challenge, but the challenge is on us," Niners offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak said. "We got to run the ball better; we got to be better on third down so we can get more ops to run the ball. That's really the biggest thing is we got to stay on the field so we can keep calling runs then hopefully, you can get the defense to commit another guy in the box, which helps other things."
The 49ers are 7-1 since Purdy returned from injury that cut out the middle of his campaign. The only loss came in Week 18 to the Seahawks. From Weeks 11-17, he generated a 111.5 passer rating, but has just a 73.1 passer rating over his last two tilts versus Seattle and Philadelphia.
Purdy is 4-0 on the road against the Seahawks in his career, tied for the longest QB win streak at Seattle at any point in a career all-time with Hall of Famer Dan Fouts.
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