There are some days where it feels like nothing can go right—or nothing can go wrong, depending on your perspective. Evidently, there was one play in the second quarter between the San Francisco 49ers and the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday that best illustrates that.
While the 49ers largely had their way with the Steelers for the vast majority of their 60 minutes on the field together, things even managed to go right for them when they were wrong. On a second-and-8 play as San Francisco approached midfield, second-year QB Brock Purdy, said WR Deebo Samuel, made a mistake. And it worked out anyway.
“Brock actually called the wrong play, but we somehow happened to make it work”, he told Kay Adams on the Up & Adams Show. “It’s just crazy how Brock seeing somebody out the peripheral of somebody that he didn’t see, but the way he scrambled out, we just work on scramble drills a lot, because we have an amazing d-line that we go against every day, so we can’t just stand in the pocket all the time”.
I don’t know what the play was supposed to be, but the play as he called left FS Minkah Fitzpatrick as a free rusher. Purdy was able to feel him coming on the blitz off his blind side and spun around, looping to his left.
Samuel could have kept working to his left in front of CB Levi Wallace, but he chose to cut upfield instead. His quarterback found the angle between Wallace and DL Isaiahh Loudermilk, throwing across Samuel’s body, the two connecting on a 10-yard catch.
Admittedly, this was actually the one drive in the first half that didn’t work out for the 49ers. Purdy threw three straight incomplete passes in between a false start by his center before punting, San Francisco able to pin the Steelers at their own five. And yet that was the only drive on which they would score all game.
But it somehow feels symbolic of just how the day went. Even when the 49ers made a mistake, they didn’t. Even when the Steelers picked up on their tells, they couldn’t make the plays that they expected to be able to make.
And that’s how you get a 30-7 final score. Even after the Steelers climbed back to within two scores with that one touchdown drive, the 49ers opened the half with a two-play touchdown drive. It was capped with a 65-yard touchdown run by RB Christian McCaffrey, on which Wallace missed a tackle that could have kept it to a gain of about five.
Seemingly everything worked against the Steelers’ favor on Sunday. They must find a way to change their fortunes in a hurry before the Cleveland Browns roll into town for a Monday night showdown, coming off a dominant win over the Cincinnati Bengals.
