49ers win the NFC West for second year in a row with a nearly complete team effort

T-shirt and hat game.

With the defense appearing shaky at times, the 49ers easily handled the Cardinals 45-29 in a road division game to win the NFC West and 11-4 overall. They’re in firm control of the #1 seed and hold 1 game lead and the tiebreaker over Philly, who lost to Seattle on Monday night.

Nonetheless, the 49ers know they control their own destiny and they’re playing like a team that isn’t concerned with how others conduct their business. Standing in their way on Sudnay was just another opponent they had to get through on their way toward another division title. And the Cardinals have been known to give them trouble off and on. But not today. Not this season.

On offense Brock Purdy took another step toward his MVP candidacy with a 16/25, 242 yards, four touchdown passing performance. Christian McCaffrey scored three total touchdowns, two receiving and one rushing, and had 115 rushing yards. The defense forced two interceptions, both Charvarius Ward (who returned one for a pick-6), and three fumbles, though they weren’t able to recover any of the fumbles but recorded 16 missed tackles per Pro Football Focus.

Brock Purdy leads the offense

I don’t know if Purdy is the MVP but there is certainly an argument to be made that he is most deserving. He currently leads the Vegas odds after today but even the NFL main Twitter/X account was positing that perhaps McCaffrey is the MVP. Either way, Purdy and the 49ers offense made it look easy again, now riding a six game winning streak since the bye week.

McCaffrey got the offense rolling with a nice 26-yard gain on 2nd down on the opening drive. The offense is running their “19 zorro” running game play call where they motion Kittle over to create a 2-man blocking surface with him and Charlie Woerner (No. 89). Kyle Shanahan will call this against teams they think are setting hard edges and trying to prevent the offense from running outside zone.

The defense wants to compress the edge and force the run inside. By design, the run never hits the true perimeter outside the tight ends like it can on some wide zone runs. It always bends back inside the blockers where the inside tight end will block the first run support defender that flashes inside. Kittle and Woerner create a crease for McCaffrey to sneak through and it’s off to the races, setting up their first touchdown.

On their first touchdown, Purdy found Deebo leaking out in the flat and I’m 99% certain this play was 100% for Deebo.

Deebo has a tendency to take plays off and jog if he knows he’s not getting the ball. And defense’s have clued in on this and left him alone. It’s very likely that’s what happened here. Deebo confirmed his jogging was by design in his post game press conference.

The Cardinals are also in quarters/quads coverage down here in the red zone in their “penny” 3-3-5 defense. Normally the nickel would run with the change of strength motion here but the Cardinals walk the safety down to be the quarter-flat defender. The safety ends up playing the run due to Deebo jogging his motion across so no one ends up picking him up. Purdy turns to play fake and then immediately locates Deebo for six.

Later in the half, 49ers fans got a scare when Brock left the game after a violent hit that was penalized. It was reportedly just a stinger but the ensuing plays with Sam Darnold were more chaotic than anyone would’ve liked. It ended up working out just fine because the offense managed to draw an illegal contact penalty on the backside of a play away from a pass that Darnold overthrew to Kittle.

Before that though, Brock hit what seemed like a routine throw but was a well-placed 8-yard catch and throw to convert on 3rd-and-5.

These are the little things that are under-appreciated about Purdy and it’s not a rocket or a bullet on a sideline out throw but quarterbacks who don’t have the Josh Allen arm have to play on time and in rhythm 99% of the time. This is a simple 1-step drop in shotgun, plant, and throw to a quick out. It has to come out on time as you can see by where the defender is. If that ball is late, it’s an interception or a pass break-up. But he doesn’t have to rifle it in there because he throws with excellent anticipation.

After Purdy came back in, he capped off the drive with an out-of-structure throw to Kittle that got them into the red zone at the 6-yard line.

Purdy broke the pocket after not finding an open receiver due to the Cardinals dropping 9 defenders into coverage. He kept his eyes downfield and hit Kittle with the defender’s back turned with a nice pass that he lofted over the coverage. 

Two plays later, Purdy hit his third read, McCaffrey, for a touchdown. Shanahan’s play call is “arches” with McCaffrey out of the backfield and is a good look at how a quarterback progresses through his reads from 1-to-2-to-3 in succession and quickly in compressed space.

Purdy works the stick route to the front side from Jennings, sees it’s not there, moves to Kittle’s shallow crosser, sees it’s not there, and then moves to the arches route from McCaffrey where he puts the ball in his chest.

To start the second half, Purdy had a two play stretch where he beat the free rusher and then scrambled from the pocket due to pressure up the middle and found McCaffrey downfield for another touchdown.

This play is similar to a throw Purdy made last season in his first game against the Dolphins when he beat the cover-0 blitz with a throw that replaced the blitzing defenders. Here, the Cardinals are not in a cover-0 pressure but what tipped Purdy off here on 3rd down was the safety shading over to 2-high over a defender that looked like he might blitz.

For the quarterback, that means 1 of 2 things. Either he's capping Kittle and playing man-to-man (really off-catch man) on Kittle, a technique commonly used so a defender can blitz from the edge, or he's playing 2-deep zone. Whatever the case, Purdy knows pressure is coming from somewhere. The Cardinals end up running a Vic Fangio tampa-2 creeper/sim pressure here.

It ends being a sim pressure with a 4-man rush and the defensive ends dropping off into zone coverage and playing the curl zones. This tends to leave the seams vulnerable.

Purdy knows that the middle runner in Tampa-2 is going to open to the 3-receiver side as that is his responsibility in Tampa-2 and that Kittle on the seam on the other side would be open. A quick check post snap confirms this and he beats the free rusher.

On the McCaffrey touchdown on the very next play, Shanahan put Cardinals safety Jalen Thompson in a blender again just like he did on Deebo’s touchdown. The vertical routes lifted the Cardinals quarters coverage defenders while McCaffrey ran the “choice-go” route out of the backfield.

Pressure forced Purdy from setting and reading his progressions and at that point, Thompson stepped up with eyes on Purdy instead of McCaffrey. Purdy escaped to his left and found McCaffrey wide open for the touchdown.

Later, Purdy hit a nice back shoulder throw to Deebo for another touchdown. The offense, at 30.4 points per game, seems to be able to score at will and make defenses pay for their mistakes and assignment busts. They’ll get a great test with a Mike MacDonald-led defense on Monday night at home against Baltimore.

Defense shaky but still solid

The defense could have had five turnovers but they were unable to recover any of their forced fumbles. They also had two interceptions, both by Ward, and one was returned for a touchdown.

With the defense in cover-3, Ward zoned off to his deep third responsibility post-snap after the #1 outside receiver to his side ran a shallow cross. This allowed him to sit and read the distribution over the top and when he saw the tight end break and sit at a depth of around 10 yards and read Kyler Murray’s eyes, he broke on the pass as Murray was throwing. He was practically untouched before he scored.

On Ward’s second interception, he was in the right place at the right time and caught an overthrow that sailed over the receiver’s head and right into his hands.

The one concerning area on defense on Sunday was the run defense that surrendered 234 rushing yards, 93 of which came on two runs. On both run plays though, the run fits were the first issue followed by the missed tackles from Fred Warner, who did not play his best game.

On the first big run play given up in the 3rd quarter, the Cardinals are able get to the perimeter of the 49ers defense and turn the run up field. It appears the defense wants to push the Cardinals run game horizontal and spill the ball carrier to the sideline.

The Cardinals turned +1 in the quarterback run game into +1 on a gap scheme run by getting a numbers advantage to the right with the pullers. Greenlaw shouldn’t be taking the block head on and and should be attacking the inside shoulder of the first puller with Ji’Ayir Brown running the alley outside. Warner turns the ball carrier back inside but no one is inside to clean it up.

On the 49 yard touchdown run by Emari Demercado early in the fourth quarter, it was really just about poor tackling more than anything.

The defense actually had this run well defended until Warner, Kinlaw, and Gregory all missed tackling the running back at the point of attack. Then Greenlaw and Lenoir both stopped, thinking the play was over but Demercado popped free as he wasn’t actually down.

On the day, the 49ers recorded 16 missed tackles. The run defense took a huge hit with the absence Arik Armstead and Javon Hargrave and the Cardinals were able to move the ball at will on the ground in much the same way the Browns did back in week six.

They cannot have these kinds of mental lapses and errors on Monday versus Baltimore because Lamar Jackson can actually make them pay. Hopefully they can get both Armstead and Hargrave back. And hopefully the missed tackles get addressed.