What the 49ers said after being blitzed by Bills in Buffalo blizzard
The 49ers were absolutely shellacked Sunday for a second straight week as the Buffalo Bills beat them 35-10 on national television in a snowstorm.
The loss marks just the fourth time in franchise history they have lost consecutive games by 25 points, after the Packers beat them 38-10 last week.
The Niners rushed for 153 yards on 27 carries but lost the turnover battle 3-0 as Kyle Juszczyk, Brock Purdy and Deebo Samuel all lost fumbles in the second half.
They allowed 220 rushing yards, including a 65-yard touchdown to James Cook midway through the second quarter.
Purdy finished with just 94 yards on 11-of-18 passing, while Josh Allen was 13-of-17 for 148 yards and two touchdowns in addition to his own rushing and bizarre receiving touchdown (which came on a pitch from Amari Cooper).
To make matters worse, Christian McCaffrey left with a knee injury in the second quarter. Coach Kyle Shanahan said McCaffrey’s injury appears to be to his PCL and could be season-ending.
Kyle Shanahan
On whether his offense wasn’t physical enough:
I thought we ran the ball real well. I think we had 120 yards at halftime, you know. It’s our passing game didn’t do well, so I didn’t sense a lack of physicality on our offense.
On the conditions:
The tracking is what I think got a lot of guys for both sides. As far as the turnovers, I think it got Brock on that one pass, obviously that slipped out of his hands.
On if Purdy required a pain-killing injection into his shoulder
No, Brock’s shoulder is totally fine.
On injuries and their impact:
Real disappointed. We have a lot more pride in this. We definitely know we have some people out and stuff, but we can play a lot better than that. Having three turnovers both of these weeks and getting down none — that’s 6-0 (turnover differential) in two weeks. When you do that and you don’t stop the run like we haven’t in these last two weeks, you can guess the outcome.
On the outlook ahead:
All must-wins, so not much different. It was a must-win this week, it’s even stronger next week. It’ll be that way from here on out. This is the hole we put ourselves in and made it a lot tougher, and if we want to get out of it, we got to do something special here.
On Josh Allen:
They beat us as a team today, not just with Josh.
On Christian McCaffrey:
He had a great week of practice. I could feel his urgency. He came out great, looking real good. Looked like he got him by the shoestring, was about to break a house call. … I never got to talk to him. I hurt for him, and it’s tough for our team not to have him.
Always when you lose great players like that, it doesn’t help. JP came in and ran well. Isaiah ran well, too. But osing Christian isn’t fun.
On Jake Moody:
I’m not thinking about that right now. I know he missed two in that game. Conditions weren’t good but especially the 55-yard one in those conditions, I think would have been an amazing kick, but thought the one before that was the one he should have made.
On whether this team is fighting as hard as prior 49ers teams:
We’re not as good of a team as those past teams. So that’s kind of how I look at it. We’re not the same team at all. Every team each year is different, but I’m not going to say that this team is the same is last year’s team (and) we’re just not fighting as hard.
George Kittle
On injuries:
You need someone to step up and that’s what we need. We continually need guys to step up. Whether it’s starters and players that we have that are already doing that or new guys who are getting into the rotation, we’re in the NFL for a reason. All these guys have belonged in the NFL and they have play-making abilities, and that’s on all of us.
On the gameplan:
I think our goal was to run the heck out of the football, keep Josh Allen off the field and I think we did an early good job of that but you have to score points. I mean, we had three and then we had an opportunity to have six or nine, whatever it is, we got to score touchdowns in the red zone. That’s how you stay in the big games where it’s really good offenses.
On the path ahead:
We only have so many opportunities left, but we’re technically not out of the playoffs. While it feels dark and gloomy and absolutely probably depressing, honestly — I’ll feel that probably in a couple hours — but technically, we can still win out and I do have the faith that we can do that, I really do.
Fred Warner
On his cramps:
My forearms just seized up. I don’t know what happened. It was just a freak thing.
On Allen’s receiving TD:
I don’t know if it was a design or if he just threw it out to Cooper then ran over there and they were on the same page, but we just got to find a way to get him down and live another down.
On the conditions:
It was just snow and cold, snow on the ground. Had to make sure your footing was right — that was it.
On drive to win:
I just want to win. I could care less about anything else so whatever they need me to do, whatever we need the team to do, let’s do that and let’s get a win.
On missing five starters to injury, then losing McCaffrey:
Obviously that’s going to always make it harder but at the end of the day, like we have 11 guys going out there who are NFL players. Let’s play together and let’s find a way to win.
Brock Purdy
On whether he’s played in conditions like that before:
Not to that extent. Just footing, you know, guys being a little bit slower and then the pass rush, dealing with that while trying to go through reads and stuff was difficult.
On his shoulder:
Arm felt good. Obviously it was cold and stuff. (Like) any other game I’ve played in my career and it’s cold out, I have to do a little more warming up. It was normal.
On not getting the ball to Kittle:
I thought we had some good plays drawn up. It’s just tough with the conditions. We’re running the ball so well and then when we did have the opportunities to throw balls, the reads just didn’t get me to George within the play, that’s just sort of how it went. But obviously we love to get George the ball as many times as we can.
On whether he thought about his shoulder when chasing a fumble recovery:
I was just trying to save a touchdown and get him out of bounds and stuff, but yeah, nothing came out of it.
On the team underperforming:
This just isn’t the standard that we play with. The last couple years and stuff, our mentality of coming out to games and being the enforcers and the dominators. So to have two games like this back-to-back late in the season, it sucks. But for us, it’s got to be next-game-up and we can’t be down in the dumps because we still have an opportunity in front of us.
On McCaffrey
We all saw what he was doing. He was on fire, man. He looked great, hitting the holes hard, bouncing off guys and making some real explosive plays. Obviously when you lose a guy like Christian it sucks. Hopefully we can get him back soon, but J.P. and Isaac came in and did a good job, too. (McCaffrey) is one of the best running backs in the league, so when you lose him like that, it takes away how we do some of the things with the offense.
On their season:
Here we are 5-7, that’s just the reality of it. That’s the NFL. We got to man up and do something about it and we have the right guys in the locker room to do that. I know that, I have faith in that and it starts with myself, too. I gotta do my job better. Everybody just has to be accountable for it and we got to come together at this time of year and make it happen.
DEEBO SAMUEL
On the conditions:
“It was different than I expected, but they were playing on the same field we were playing on. Just a tough loss. Can’t blame it on the conditions at all. We just have to finish.”
On what’s next:
Get in, watch the tape, see what we have to correct, get to practice Wednesday and move forward
On blizzard
“I wouldn’t say it was a surprise. It’s been snowing the past two days. The weather said it was supposed to stop at 3 o’clock but it was going all game. We can’t blame the conditions. They played on the same field. We have to be better as a team.”
On McCaffrey injury
“Honestly I didn’t know he was injured for a while. I looked around and said, ‘Where’s Christian?’ ” … Overall I hope he’s good.
On missing guys
“I wouldn’t say that’s the case. Injuries come with this game. We’ve fought through injuries in previous years. We can’t just sit back and say, ‘We’re missing this person, we’re missing this person.’ At the end of the day, you have to be a man, man up, go out here and make plays.”