BY DANIEL GLUSKOTER
Brock Purdy played another near perfect game at quarterback and the 49ers dominated ball possession on the way to a 30-12 dismantling of the New York Giants Thursday night at Levi’s Stadium.
Purdy was 25-37 for 310 yards with two touchdowns as the Niners never trailed on the way to their third straight win in their home opener. San Francisco controlled the ball for 39:10 and finished with 26 first downs to the Giants 10.
The Niners jumped out to a 10-3 lead mid-way through the second quarter on a nine yard touchdown pass from Purdy to Ronnie Bell, a seventh round draft pick out of Michigan playing in his first NFL regular season game.
San Francisco increased their lead to 17–3 on a four yard touchdown run by Christian McCaffrey before a Giants field goal cut the lead to 17–6 at the half.
A pair of Jake Moody field goals helped offset an eight yard touchdown run by former 49er Matt Breida to give San Francisco a 23–12 lead early in the final quarter.
With the Niners continuing to wear down New York, Purdy connected with Deebo Samuel for a 27 yard touchdown pass with 6:05 remaining to put the game out of reach. Samuel had six receptions for 129 yards and the score.
George Kittle hauled in seven passes for 90 yards while McCaffrey had 18 rushes for 85 yards in addition to five receptions for 34 yards. Defensively, Nick Bosa and Javon Hargrave each recorded sacks, while Talanoa Hufanga had his second inception of the season.
Daniel Jones had another tough night at quarterback for the Giants (1-2), being limited to 137 passing yards while going 22–32 with an interception, while Darius Slayton led the Giants with three receptions for 32 yards.
Asking if he was happy with the teams start after the game, Purdy responded “It’s huge. Obviously you want to win every game, but we have a high standard. We have a standard that we want to be the best versions of ourselves. For us it’s sort of like, yeah, we win the game which is most important and is great, but there’s stuff out there that we can clean up and be better at. That’s the standard that we have here. We have 14 more games to do that, to be the best versions of ourselves and clean things up. We’re going to take it one day at a time, but it’s huge for us to be 3-0 and have momentum.”
When asked about the teams emphasis of getting off to a fast start this season, Shanahan added “That’s the goal, and real happy to be 3-0 right now. It’s really cool to do it after a Thursday Night Game. There’s not many times in the NFL where you get enjoy a win more than just that night. So it’s always cool when you win on Thursdays. I told the guys if they want to win and have a weekend off, we got to earn it, and those guys did. Now you can sit back and relax a little bit, kind of enjoy how these last three weeks have gone and be ready to go on Monday.”
The 49ers now have ten days off before facing the Arizona Cardinals at Levi’s on October 1st at 1:25 PM.
GAME NOTES:
Purdy improved to 8-0 in the regular season in his career, giving him the third-most consecutive wins by a quarterback to begin a career since 1970.
McCaffrey surpassed 5,000 yards rushing for his career while scoring a touchdown in his 12th straight game including the playoffs.
San Francisco has now scored 30 points in all three of their wins, and six straight regular season games dating to last season,
The Niners improved to 22-21 against the Giants, including 13-10 at home.
San Francisco has now won 13 consecutive regular season games dating back to Week 8 of the 2022 season.
The 49ers defense held the Giants to just 150 total yards, their fewest for an opponent since 2017.
