Brock Purdy was laid out.
It was late in the fourth quarter and the San Francisco 49ers quarterback had become origami on grass, rudely folded between a pair of Seattle Seahawks defenders and left staring at the sky from the flat of his back. The thumb on his throwing hand was bashed and bloody, a perfect representation of the 49ers’ playoff outlook. In a game that meant so much for the franchise’s never-ending uphill battle, a foothold was lost that was more important to San Francisco than any other postseason team.
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There would be no playoff bye week for the 49ers. Nor would there be home-field advantage that could have allowed San Francisco to awaken Sunday with the comfort of being settled into Levi’s Stadium through Super Bowl 60. Instead, sunrise will serve up a different reality: Both the 49ers and their postseason fortunes were thrashed by the Seahawks in a brutal 13-3 loss.
Denied the No. 1 seed in the NFC and dispatched all the way down to No. 5. And if the Los Angeles Rams beat the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, San Francisco will be knocked down to the sixth seed. For the 49ers, that will mean the difference between playing their wild-card game on the road against either the Carolina Panthers or Tampa Bay Buccaneers (both of whom finished with 8-9 records) or against the Philadelphia Eagles or Chicago Bears (both of whom enter Sunday 11-5).
“We’re ready for it,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said after the loss. “I mean, yeah, it would have been nice to have to have a home game here — or both home games and get a bye — but it is what it is. This team’s been through a lot this year. Now we got to do it the hard way, and we’ll embrace the s*** out of doing it the hard way and look forward to it.”
The Seahawks kept Brock Purdy and his 49ers out of the end zone on Saturday night. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
(Ezra Shaw via Getty Images)
It worth noting Shanahan’s 49ers just beat the Bears 42-38 in a fourth-quarter comeback…
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