“Dark Clouds Over Levi’s Stadium: 49ers’ Star Receiver Faces Career-Threatening Health Crisis”

Even with Brock Purdy under center, the 49ers are built for the Super Bowl

The 49ers Are Ready for the Drought to End
The storm never came Saturday, until it did. And the NFL’s hottest team showed—to anyone who might still doubt them—that they’re built to win it all.

The banner is visible but not necessarily prominent. It hangs near a corner of the Levi’s Stadium home locker room, in an otherwise blank space between two lockers. On a white background five years are spelled out in red numbers—1981 to ’94—each connoting a season in which San Francisco won a Super Bowl. It’s understated yet powerful, a reminder of what was and what matters and what, they hope, may be again.

Only two franchises—Pittsburgh and New England—have won more championships in the Super Bowl era (and only Dallas can match the 49ers’ five titles). But that last year on the banner grows more concerning with each championship-less campaign. Most pro football franchises would kill for this franchise’s uniquely rich history. But despite 12 playoff appearances since seizing their last Lombardi Trophy, despite a close Super Bowl loss, late, three seasons ago, the 49ers are now almost three decades removed from the dominance that long defined them.

Perhaps that’s why the locker room mood late Saturday wasn’t festive, not even after a 41–23 throttling of the Seahawks that featured 25 consecutive second-half points. The vibe—which could be described as a marriage between insurance conference and Mondays at the office—stemmed from what’s ahead, from how hard it is to win the season’s final game, how much preparation and health and luck are required, from all the strange and glorious and extra this season has presented. In the end these 49ers will end up looking at the same banner they’ve seen for months … or adding another year to it.

49ers players celebrate during a playoff win over the Seahawks
Cary Edmondson/USA TODAY Sports
If any players smiled, the grin was discreet. If any coaches loved their team’s performance, they told only themselves. As cornerback Charvarius Ward answered questions at his locker, he wore several silver chains and a cross around his neck. They glimmered. He yawned—like, actually yawned. “It feels great,” he said.

The team’s play was far more convincing than Ward’s answer. Had those crowded around him not just watched San Francisco bludgeon its division rival, it’s unlikely that a single person listening would have believed him.

In a season of disbelief that San Francisco first stoked and then dismantled, what the 49ers are doing just doesn’t make a ton of sense. Start with the spate of injuries early on. Add in the resulting 3–4 start. Plus the musical chairs at quarterback, which required schematic adjustments to tailor the offense to Trey Lance (broken ankle, Week 2), then Jimmy Garoppolo (broken foot, Week 13), then Brock Purdy (the Faithful, as they call themselves, might want to find some wood). Throw in the fair and relevant notions that San Francisco, despite a complete, star-studded roster, was doomed to another lost season—that they lacked a championship-level quarterback, that Mike McDaniel’s departure to Miami was sinking the offense, that the Niners couldn’t stay healthy—hovering overhead.

San Francisco didn’t simply untangle those sentiments; they took a sledgehammer to them, then shoved the remnants into a trash compactor, then turned that into something more like … gold. In came Christian McCaffrey, the shifty, versatile running back from Carolina. Back came many of the 49ers’ injured cornerstones. Into the spotlight trudged Purdy, the final pick in last year’s draft—Mr. Quite Relevant right now. The Niners won 10 straight, netting the NFC’s No. 2 playoff seed, which sent the NFL’s hottest team careening, it seemed, back to the game they lost to Kansas City three years ago.

Would a defense so stingy it still clips coupons, an offense loaded with talent but missing the most important part, and a coaching wizard amid perhaps his greatest masterpiece lead back to the Super Bowl? Would Kyle Shanahan add a fourth Lombardi Trophy to his family’s trophy case, returning San Francisco to its rightful perch?

It sure seemed that way, right up until the meteorologists began forecasting a storm that threatened to make Saturday’s game wet, windy and, most importantly, unpredictable. Reports suggested that rain would fall in sheets, and winds would pick up and transport small children down the block. Signs on the U.S. 101 highway cautioned drivers to brace for “extreme weather.” The state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, declared a state of emergency earlier in the week. Parks closed, electricity went out and 45-foot waves reportedly gathered nearby in the Pacific Ocean.

Shanahan described the expected conditions as a “distraction test.” He attempted to deliver an upbeat sell: no lightning, it’s football and all the rest. But he also admitted that, deep into the stormiest of seasons, the weather was starting to, if not fray, then at least test his nerves.

The storm wasn’t all that concerned him. The hottest team in football had wrapped up the NFC West title more than three weeks ago; for Shanahan and his staff, the balancing act was being careful with some players, but not so careful as to diminish their chance to obtain the highest-possible seed. That meant answering questions about his playoff record—4–2 before Saturday—as a head coach. While the mark itself wasn’t bad at all, the offense’s performance in those games could be generously described as modest: 21.7 points per game and the four total touchdown passes, compared to six interceptions, thrown by his quarterbacks. Purdy had been a revelation, but the sample size was small. Pete Carroll, meanwhile, held an 8–4 record over Shanahan since 2017.

So, yes, the oddsmakers made San Francisco a 9.5-point betting favorite. Yes, Shanahan welcomed Deebo Samuel back to an offense that had excelled in his absence. Elijah Mitchell returned, too. But it could feel, as the game drew closer, as if the Seahawks had a chance to pull off a seismic upset; fate and circumstances and history had at least delivered better odds. The clouds had aligned, the thinking went, in favor of Seattle.

Rain pounded the turf at Levi’s Stadium early Saturday morning. But the storm soon gave way to weather conditions that made the dire forecast look comically overblown in hindsight. An hour before kickoff, rain spit and stopped; the sun even took an occasional peek through the clouds and fog. It was 60 degrees outside, and the tailgaters showed up in full force. They carried ponchos and wore layers of clothing and bumped California classics in the parking lot, bouncing and drinking to Dre and Snoop and N.W.A.

Savvy entrepreneurs hawked umbrellas and knit caps while surrounded by fans clad in jerseys that announced the Niners’ history, from Montana and Rice to Young and Patrick Willis and many more. But the Faithful wore jerseys for current players, too: Samuel, George Kittle, Brandon Aiyuk, Fred Warner, Nick Bosa and the rest. And no combination was more indicative of the 49ers’ season than the number of QB jerseys. Some donned Lance’s No. 5; others, Garoppolo’s 10; still others, Purdy’s lucky 13.

Inside the stadium, employees handed out red towels, just in case. The crowd arrived late, perhaps in anticipation of a deluge. They would get one, just not the kind the meteorologists predicted. No, this monsoon was the 49ers themselves, from the defense led by three first-team All-Pros (Bosa, Warner, Talanoa Hufanga) to the first rookie quarterback to orchestrate a playoff win since Russell Wilson in 2012.

49ers fans cheer in the rain during San Francisco’s playoff win over the Seahawks
The rain wasn’t a deterrent for fans ready for the start of a Super Bowl run. Cary Edmondson/USA TODAY Sports
Television cameras captured Purdy walking into the stadium. He wore a white windbreaker. His eyes were downcast. He swung a water bottle with his right arm. He looked like a baby-faced teacher heading into a middle school math class he’ll never control. But as the game kicked off and San Francisco took control, that impression hardly mattered.

Instead, there was Arik Armstead wrecking the Seahawks’ first drive with a third-down sack. There was Aiyuk, settling into an opening in Seattle’s zone coverage, for a 19-yard completion. There was Samuel, back and apparently healthy, rumbling off left tackle for 22 yards. And there was McCaffrey, sailing up the left sideline for 68 yards and catching a touchdown pass for a 10–0 lead.

The reigning NFC player of the month—after a six-week stretch to close the regular season with 27 receptions, 767 yards from scrimmage and seven touchdowns—McCaffrey again displayed how he changed the 49ers’ offense. Shanahan recently told the team’s radio network that McCaffrey reminded him of Julio Jones, who Shanahan coached as the offensive coordinator in Atlanta, in how his presence and skill set moved defensive players around and to places they weren’t comfortable going. Both players freed up Shanahan’s innovative mind to add layers to his schemes, leading to confusion, contempt and, ultimately, touchdowns.

McCaffrey helped free Kittle. He helped the 49ers run the ball, even when he himself did not carry it. He served as a willing decoy when necessary, while subbing in for Samuel after knee and ankle injuries sidelined him starting in Week 14. Getting beat was the only beat the 49ers missed from that point on. The four draft picks necessary to acquire McCaffrey in mid-October began to seem more and more like a bargain. Or a heist.

McCaffrey was fully integrated into the lineup for the final 10 regular-season games. San Francisco won them all, while the offense averaged 30.5 points. Compare that output and