Make California Post a Preferred Source This week Christian McCaffrey heads deep into enemy territory, just like he did last January.
He’s got a lot more friends by his side this time around.
The San Francisco 49ers superstar running back was about the last man standing by the time Kyle Shanahan marched his team into Lumen Field last January. It was him, Brock Purdy and, uh, well, actually none of the other skill position players that will take the field on Sunday.
The final score — 41-6 — was striking, but considering the circumstances, far from shocking.
McCaffrey was bottled up for 74 yards on 16 touches. Purdy was picked off and posted his fifth-worst passer rating as a starting quarterback. The Niners sent blitzes and still struggled to pressure Sam Darnold; the Seahawks rushed four and were constantly after Purdy.
It was pure domination. But it wasn’t an even playing field, not from the opening kick (you know, the one Rashid Shaheed returned 95 yards to the house, electrifying the 12th Man).
Now, nine months later, my, oh my, how the tables have turned.
Mike Macdonald may have come into the 49ers’ house and celebrated a Super Bowl championship in their locker room back in February, but that’s a distant memory now that Shanahan’s squad is back at full strength, or at least about as close to it as ever.
Shanahan didn’t even stick around to see it. He was on site providing analysis for the pregame show but said this week that he had fulfilled his duties by halftime and took off soon thereafter.
It’s the Niners who are riding high, the undisputed kings of the league through four weeks and on top of the NFC West. Surely, redemption — and revenge — has to be on their minds.
“I don’t know,” McCaffrey said. “You know, we don’t even think about last year.”
This rivalry goes back further than any of its current participants, and their last meeting is as much of the record as any of their other 50 showdowns since becoming division foes in 2002.
You can bet their Week 1 loss to the Niners last season helped motivate the Hawks all the way to the Super Bowl. Likewise, there’s no way Shanahan isn’t using the second-most lopsided margin in the history of the rivalry as fuel for the 49ers’ own Super Bowl aspirations.
As for this week, the Niners should need no extra motivation.
“There’s always extra juice with them, regardless of what last year was,” linebacker Fred Warner said. “Those divisional games truly just mean more. When you see each other twice a year, you know one another. We know them; they know us. … It’s gonna be hostile. I think that’s what makes it that kind of game. It doesn’t have anything to do with what happened in the past.”
Warner revealed after the fact that had the 49ers prevailed in January, he likely would have been cleared to return from his broken ankle for the NFC Championship. When he takes the field Sunday, he’ll do so carrying the memory of not being able to make it back in time last season.
“They were obviously the better team that day and went on to do exactly what they earned,” he said. “I couldn’t help more than just rile up the guys on the sideline.”
Warner can rouse with the best of them, but there was only so much he could do for a team missing himself, two other linebackers (Nick Martin, Tatum Bethune), tight end George Kittle, its top two pass rushers (Nick Bosa, Mykel Williams) and a starting safety (Ji’Ayir Brown).
Every one of them sans Bosa is expected to play Sunday, plus linebacker Dre Greenlaw and receivers Deebo Samuel and Mike Evans, who weren’t around the last time they faced off.
Even those were on the field last January and still in the organization have come a long way. Chief among them is Renardo Green, who has been one of their most reliable corners this year.
He was down so bad chasing around Cooper Kupp that Shanahan yanked him in the first quarter. He had been beaten for a first down catch with Seattle backed up in second-and-20. Cameras captured Shanahan on the sideline having a stern word with the cornerback — what the head coach would describe afterward as “coaching aggressively.”
It was the culmination of a challenging sophomore season for Green. It took him one game this season to come up with more interceptions (one) than he had all last year.
He clearly took the way last season ended and used it to drive him to get better this offseason.
“The way Renardo came to day one of Phase One, you could tell that he had put work in,” Shanahan said last month. “He had an awesome Phase One, Two and Three. … You could tell he’d been working all year and really locked in to getting better at everything.”
Seattle dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Purdy was sacked twice — two more times than he has been through four games this season — while Seattle managed to rack up 31 total pressures on only 27 dropbacks, per Pro Football Focus’ tracking.
It may still be a challenge for a 49ers defensive line without Bosa, but the offensive line has done a much better job protecting Purdy — and opening running lanes for McCaffrey. San Francisco’s running backs mustered a measly 3.2 yards per carry in the loss.
In other words, there’s not a whole lot to glean from the tape from their last meeting.
But Shanahan oughta have it on loop, anyway. Well, maybe a playlist alternating between that game and the blue and green confetti falling from Levi’s Stadium a few weeks later.
For all those reasons, even Shanahan admitted this one means a little more.
“I mean, yeah,” Shanahan said. “I think playing a divisional game always feels a little bit more. Playing a big rival like the Seahawks always does. Them being the Super Bowl winners, how the last game went, so everything.”
