SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — When star tight end George Kittle went down with a torn Achilles tendon in the second quarter, it looked as if the injury issues that have plagued the San Francisco 49ers all season might have finally broken the team.
Instead, Brock Purdy connected with Jauan Jennings on a 45-yard pass on the next play to set up a field goal that helped the short-handed 49ers pull out a 23-19 victory over the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles in the wild-card round.
Now San Francisco (13-5) heads to Seattle (14-3) for a divisional round game Saturday without Kittle and fellow former All-Pros Nick Bosa and Fred Warner.
“I think that made us stronger for stuff like this,” Pro Bowl left tackle Trent Williams said about all the injuries this season. “Kittle going down in the first half. I think if we didn’t have experience with that, it would have been easy for everybody to fold and nobody would have blamed us. They would say, ‘Hey, they don’t have this player, don’t that player, they probably should lose.’”
Instead, they gutted out a win thanks to some unlikely contributors including late-season additions at linebacker Eric Kendricks and Garret Wallow and little-used receiver Demarcus Robinson, a game-winning drive by Purdy after throwing two interceptions and a timely trick play.
The 49ers were trailing 16-10 at the start of the fourth quarter when coach Kyle Shanahan called the play that led to Jennings throwing a 29-yard touchdown pass to Christian McCaffrey for a 17-16 lead.
The Eagles then went back ahead on a late field goal before Purdy went 5 for 7 for 42 yards, with a 5-yard scramble for a first down and a 4-yard TD pass to McCaffrey with 2:54 to play to make it 23-19.
The defense then held, keeping the Niners’ hopes alive of playing the Super Bowl on their home field next month.
“It shows how they’ve been all year,” Shanahan said. “They’ve been resilient all year, we’ve overcome a lot. They believe in each other a ton. And we knew we couldn’t come in here and just win by certain guys making plays. We knew we had to come here and win as a complete team, and I really believe we played as a complete team and that’s why we got it done.”
