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Brock Purdy, George Kittle help 49ers stop 3-game slide with win vs. Bears: Key takeaways

9 December 2024Last Update :
Brock Purdy, George Kittle help 49ers stop 3-game slide with win vs. Bears: Key takeaways

By Adams Jahns, Kevin Fishbain, Matt Barrows and Chris Licata

The San Francisco 49ers handily knocked off the Chicago Bears 38-13 on Sunday for their first win in nearly a month. While the 49ers snapped a three-game losing streak, the Bears dropped their seventh straight contest, and their first under interim coach Thomas Brown.

Niners quarterback Brock Purdy and tight end George Kittle led the way in a bounce-back effort from last Sunday’s dud in snowy Buffalo, connecting on all six targets for 151 yards, a season-high for Kittle. Offensively, San Francisco outgained Chicago by nearly 300 yards (452-162).

The Niners (6-7) suffered a pair of injury scares in the fourth quarter. Purdy exited for one play after getting hit high and low on a Bears (4-9) pass rush. A few plays later, rookie running back Isaac Guerendo, filling in for the injured Christian McCaffrey and Jordan Mason, headed to the locker room early with a foot injury and did not return.

Their health is worth monitoring as the banged-up 49ers have only three days’ rest before a Week 15 “Thursday Night Football” game against the Los Angeles Rams, who knocked off MVP candidate Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills on Sunday.

Bears’ defense lays egg in first game post-Eberflus

Did the Bears miss former coach Matt Eberflus against the 49ers on Sunday? Maybe. If anything, his game-planning and play-calling were missed on the field. Eberflus didn’t beat the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions, but at least the Bears were competitive in those games. The Lions moved the ball well in Detroit on Thanksgiving, but Eberflus’ defense still kept them out of the end zone for the most part. It set the stage for a comeback led by rookie quarterback Caleb Williams but also the disastrous final 32 seconds that led to Eberflus’ own dismissal.

Defensive coordinator Eric Washington called plays against 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan on Sunday, and it didn’t go well. The game was essentially over by halftime. The 49ers led 24-0 at the break, outgaining the Bears 319-to-4 in total yards. San Francisco had 14 first downs in the first half, while the Bears had one. The 49ers continued to pour it on in the second half, too. Washington and the Bears’ defense had no answers for Shanahan, Purdy and Kittle. — Adam Jahns, Bears beat writer

Purdy, 49ers return to dominance on offense

Purdy had perhaps his best game of the season, completing 20-of-25 passes (80 percent) for 325 yards and two easy touchdowns to Jauan Jennings, his favorite wide receiver target. He even had the crowd chanting “Pur-dy! Pur-dy!” after he had to be helped off the field following an ugly-looking roughing-the-passer penalty in the fourth quarter but came back one snap later. The 49ers began the game with Purdy exclusively under center, and his play-action fakes to Guerendo created plenty of comfortable throws against the Bears’ defense.

The opposite had been a theme to the 49ers’ 2024 season: Defenses have been playing aggressive, press coverage and forcing Purdy to hold onto the ball, take off and run or throw into tight windows. On Sunday, those windows were wide open. He completed every target to Kittle and 7-of-8 targets to Jennings. Purdy had more yards at the end of the first quarter (152) than he did in a full game in Buffalo last week (94). — Matt Barrows, 49ers beat writer

Chicago’s offense does nothing in first half (again)

During the Bears’ now seven-game losing streak, they’ve scored only two touchdowns in the first half. This was the second game in a row in which they went scoreless before halftime, finishing with an abysmal four yards of offense and one first down.

It speaks to the game-planning on the coaching side and an inability to execute on the players’ side. To be that bad at the start of games is an organizational issue, and it was startling to see it this week especially, coming off extra rest and what seemed to be an energized locker room after the coaching change.

While Williams and Rome Odunze had some nice moments in the second half, those touchdowns were while down more than three scores. It was another reminder how far away the Bears are from what they thought they would be on offense, regardless of play caller. — Kevin Fishbain, Bears beat writer

Hufanga’s return aids 49ers

Safety Talanoa Hufanga returned to the starting lineup on Sunday. But he didn’t bump rookie Malik Mustapha out of the rotation. Instead, he replaced Ji’Ayir Brown, who was coming off a bad game against the Bills. A poor tackle attempt by Brown, for example, was conspicuous on a 65-yard touchdown run by James Cook last week.

Hufanga played Sunday with a club protecting his right wrist, but it didn’t seem to affect him. He was in on the first tackle of the game and finished with five tackles. Brown replaced Hufanga late in the contest, though it seemed to be pitch-count related, not an injury issue.

Hufanga was part of a 49ers’ defense that finally showed the electricity that regularly showed up in the 2023 season. The 49ers held the Bears to four yards at halftime and sacked Williams seven times despite playing without Nick Bosa for the third straight game. Leonard Floyd had two of those sacks and now leads the team in that category, with 8 1/2. Bosa has seven sacks in 10 games. — Barrows

Required reading

  • NFL Week 14 scores and live updates: Playoff picture, standings, news, inactives, predictions, odds
  • Russini’s what I’m hearing: How attractive is the Bears’ job?, Belichick’s interest in college is real
  • Barrows: 49ers have a personnel issue on defense, not a Nick Sorensen issue
  • Can the Bears find a ‘leader of men’ as their next head coach?

(Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

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