The 49ers opened their home slate in style. Not particularly good style, but style nonetheless. San Francisco sputtered at times and lurched to a crawl at times, but they never really stopped moving forward in a thorough 30-12 drubbing of the New York Giants on Thursday Night Football.
It wasn’t the best game the 49ers could play, but it got the job done, and that may just be an indicator of how talented this group of players is. They can put out a subpar game by the standard of the bar they’ve set and still look like a Super Bowl contender.
Buy 49ers TicketsThat’s just one takeaway though. Here are the rest from Thursday night:
What an offense
For the third time this season the 49ers scored 30 points. They’ve done that in all but one of Purdy’s nine regular season games as QB1. San Francisco wasn’t perfect offensively, but that speaks to just how good they are on that side of the ball that they could get through some rough performances and still have a really nice offensive game where they posted 30 points and averaged 5.7 yards per play.
Nick Bosa first sack
The Giants did a nice job of getting the ball out of QB Daniel Jones’ hands quickly to mitigate some of the 49ers’ pass rush, but that didn’t stop Bosa from getting his first sack of the year. The reigning Defensive Player of the Year was close on several potential sacks and might’ve had a huge night defensively if he’d been able to convert. He still posted one on a play action bootleg where he didn’t bite on the fake and whacked Jones for a loss of eight. That might be the one to get him rolling the rest of the way.
Purdy lucky
There were at least three interceptable throws from Purdy that wound up not going that way. He floated one toward TE George Kittle where the tight end had to knock it away from the defensive back. There was another floater to WR Deebo Samuel in the end zone that Samuel had to knock down from a DB. Then he had one that got batted into the air toward the middle of the field and into the hands of 49ers WR Ronnie Bell. It was a bad night for the 49ers’ QB, but it certainly could have been worse had he not gotten a little lucky.
YAC bros
The 49ers gained 215 of their 310 passing yards after the catch (69.4%) in their 30-12 victory over the Giants.
Deebo Samuel (+613, 1st), Christian McCaffrey (+278, 1st) & George Kittle (+257, 2nd) all rank in the top 2 of their position in YACOE since 2021.#NYGvsSF | #FTTB pic.twitter.com/iOZlcfRfx6
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) September 22, 2023
While the 49ers’ offense sputtered at times, it showed off why it’s so dangerous. When they got into third-and-long in the first half they went to WR Deebo Samuel and RB Christian McCaffrey. Their individual brilliance after the catch buoyed the 49ers offense on what could’ve been a really dreadful evening. It’s a nice club for the 49ers to have in their bag that they can just get it in the hands of one of that pair and they’ll turn it into a big play to spark the offense.
Jake Moody is money
Kickers to make at least 9 FGs w/out a miss in their first 3 career games since the merger:#49ers rookie Jake Moody
Chandler Catanzaro
Matt Bryant— Josh Dubow (@JoshDubowAP) September 22, 2023
Moody still hasn’t missed a kick as a pro. He was three-for-three again Thursday and has now drilled nine field goals on nine tries in his first three games. He’s only the third player to do that without missing in his first three games per Josh Dubow of the Associated Press.
More Elijah Mitchell
Mitchell was far more prominent Thursday than he was at any point in the first two weeks. After notching five carries in Week 1 and none in Week 2, Mitchell posted 11 carries for 42 yards and looked really good when he got work. If he’s going to continue being effective he should play more and help take some of the load off of McCaffrey.
