Garoppolo has a broken leg, Little said. “How long has he been out?” Shanahan said. “It’s probably six months, at least,” Little told Shanahan. “It will be the whole season.” Shanahan is back at work. Miami 10, San Francisco 10. Tua Tagovailoa vs., now Mr. Irrelevant, Brock Purdy, last pick in 2022 draft. Shanahan had a vital game to win and a one-game lead in the NFC West to protect. He couldn’t tell the team, or his staff, that for the second time this year, their starting quarterback was now gone for the year. Especially in this game, with the fastest and most explosive team in football on the other side of the field. So he didn’t say anything. Afterwards, he and three Niners players told me, basically, this is the life we’ve chosen. That’s one of the ways that, after Shanahan heard the news, his team was able to act like everything was fine. Since hearing the news, the Niners and Brock Purdy have outscored Miami 23-7. “Football is weird,” George Kittle told me afterward. “It’s a brutal, unforgiving sport. I saw Jimmy at half time and he told me. This is awful for your general and three-time leader. But you know, it’s kind of “Well, this sucks, but we’ve got a game to play.” It’s like, we love you, and we always will, but we have to go. See you after the game.” Pause. “It’s kind of the beauty and the madness of the sport, what happened today.” What Happened: This was a tragic-fantasy football game. It doesn’t sound like it, with a final San Francisco 33, Miami 17, and a season-ending leg injury to Garoppolo, the unluckiest man in football. But the Niners led by six through 12 tense minutes in the fourth quarter, and then the floodgates opened, and it was a strange end to what had been a heart-pounding 57 minutes. It started like a game in Miami, with a 75-yard Tua Tagovailoa TD pass on the first offensive play of the game. But Tua gave the Niners 13 points and they won by 16. This, in fact, was the best game of the season that huge areas of the country did not see. Because this was a CBS doubleheader week and the national television audience had a great late-window Kansas City-Cincinnati game, this Fox telecast—Miami with the most explosive offense in football at San Francisco with the best defense in football—the country lost the most. It did not appear on the East Coast (Boston/New York/Philadelphia/Washington) or New England, Tampa/St. Pete, Orlando, Los Angeles, the Pacific Northwest, and most of the Midwest and Southwest. So you saw the score and heard that Garoppolo is gone (on the heels of September losing Trey Lance for the year) and wondered two things: Who is Brock Purdy? And is San Francisco’s season over? He is a child. And the season is positively not over. I’ll tell you one play that surprised me, and Shanahan, that explains exactly why the season is not over for the Niners. I met with Purdy for a few minutes after the game. He looks like he’s 17. He’s 22, 6-1 (generously), needs a haircut, and seems oblivious to what he’s been up to. He’s talking like, Bring all that skepticism. “A lot of people have said a lot of things about me, like, I’m not good enough, this or that,” he told a room outside the locker room at Levi’s Stadium. “I just trust God and I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing—put my head down and go to work.” Work this week means preparing for his first NFL start next Sunday. Against Tom Brady. “Very nice,” he told me. “The goat. He’s been playing football longer than I’ve been alive.” Quite a day. The Bengals are at the top of the news food chain, beating Kansas City for the third time in 11 months. Weird: Patrick Mahomes is 0-3 against the Bengals since the New Year and 12-3 against everyone else. Nightmare in Nashville Dept. I hate the “if the season ended today” crap, because, well, the season still has five weeks left. But interestingly, per the Week 13 standings, Tennessee would host Cincinnati in a Wild Card game. “Déjà vu all over again,” says Ryan Tannehill. Deshaun Watson’s return was inglorious – the Browns won 27-14 in Houston, but Watson didn’t account for any of the three TDs. Watson didn’t seem to throw at players in Cleveland uniforms. He looked like he was throwing worms on the ground three feet in front of the Browns receivers. AJ Brown’s revenge game went very well for Brown, but not so well for the object of his revenge. This is our AJ this is our AJ#ProBowlVote @1kalwaysopen_#TENvsPHI | #FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/65Tkqyp8VJ — Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) December 4, 2022 The MVP race is a Mahomes-Hurts race with five weeks to go. Joe Burrow, killer of great players and teams, will have something to say about the MVP. Lamar Jackson has a sore knee from the scary 10-9 win over Denver, but he should be back by the end of the season. The problem is that two pesky road games, at Pittsburgh and Cleveland, are on the horizon. Break out the champagne, Packers. For something anyway. (Hint: Papa Bear is rolling in his grave.) Denver has scored 45 points since Halloween. Dallas scored 54 on Sunday night. Russell Wilson is in the middle of a nightmare that won’t go away. Two years ago, after 13 games in Seattle, he had nine wins and 36 TD passes. Now, after 13 weeks in Denver, he has three wins and eight TD passes. Every week is a new low. Pretty inflexible, NFL: Dallas 54, Indianapolis 19. The Giants tied a game for the first time in 25 years. Few New Yorkers reportedly stayed awake for it. Greg Knapp’s widow has a good cause and isn’t afraid to be too blunt. The Bills, today, are to New England what the Pats were to Buffalo for two decades. Brock Purdy, however, first. And the play that makes Shanahan confident that all is not lost. This is my 39th season covering the NFL, and one thing I’ve never liked is having someone play a carry for an entire game. A work is rare. The games are about 155 plays long, and in this case, it was San Francisco’s defense that stood out. But I choose one work of this neo-enlightened general to be of vital importance. Maybe not the biggest of the day, but certainly the biggest for Purdy. Let’s recap. Miami 10, San Francisco 10. Niners ball, third and 10 at their 35-yard line, 79 seconds left in the half, the home team already knows they lost their second starting quarterback of the year. Garoppolo was crushed by two Miami defenders four minutes into that game. For the final 56 minutes, Purdy had to earn an incredibly valuable save. The key point was late in the first half, on that third-and-10. Early in the game, eight Dolphins crowded the line, a clear sign that they would again put a lot of pressure on Purdy at the snap. On the sideline, Shanahan prayed that Purdy recognized the blitz and called an adjustment to end George Kittle’s run. He was the primary receiver on the play, but now the right read was for an adjustment so Kittle cut his route to his position a little shorter. Enough to make the first down, but not enough for a huge profit. “We had to do something faster because we knew we weren’t going to have the time,” Shanahan said. It was about 80 minutes into the game now, and the locker room was empty. I spoke with Shanahan as he sat in a locker and tried to explain why Purdy’s decision here was so important. “I thought that was Purdy’s game,” I said. “I did too,” Shanahan said. “Especially with what they did to us. They were getting behind Brock and doing a good job with our quick throws. It was a huge job of Brock to signal something to change the route [for Kittle].” There’s something Shanahan and Purdy didn’t know. The average NFL pass this season has been thrown 2.74 seconds after the quarterback gets the ball in his hands. Purdy threw that pass in 1.72 seconds. In the NFL this season, only five times in 13 weeks has a quarterback completed a pass of at least 10 yards in 1.72 seconds or less, according to NFL Next Gen stats. This was the sixth. As Purdy was about to be hit by Jaelan Phillips, he threw a dart to Kittle, who caught and ran for a 19-yard gain. That means something because it shows that Purdy recognized the defense, changed the ball, was willing to take a big hit and was skilled enough to complete a pass downfield with everything going on. “I’m just showing the guys that I’m willing to take one on the chin, willing to do whatever it takes to win,” Purdy said. Five plays later, at the Miami three-yard line, Purdy threw to Christian McCaffrey in the end zone. Not a perfect throw, but a catch. McCaffrey threw it. On the next play, Purdy tested McCaffrey again. Touchdown. CMC gives the @49ers the lead before halftime! 📺: #MIAvsSF on FOX📱: Stream on NFL+ pic.twitter.com/vp7F5OSzLM — NFL (@NFL) December 4, 2022 “After the touchdown,” Purdy said, “Christian came up to me and said, ‘Thank you for believing in me and trusting me to do the job.’ That’s pretty wild. I mean, for him to tell me that. I grew up watching him. Now, I’m on his team, throwing him a touchdown pass. Wild.” Niners 17, Dolphins 10. It was never closer than six the rest of the way. Purdy finished 25-for-37 with 210 yards, 2 touchdown passes and an interception. Tua Tagovailoa will beat himself up for his consistent interceptions and accuracy inside and outside. Understandable. He missed four or five long throws to open receivers. But hit TD bombs to…
