You know what football needed? A new great rivalry. A bitter rivalry. Steelers-Ravens was terrific for a while, but Ray Lewis and James Harrison are long gone. Eagles-Cowboys is good, but not particularly angry. Niners-Seahawks has calmed down since Richard Sherman went volcanic. Kansas City doesn’t have one great rival. Jets-Pats, Falcons-Saints, Bears-Packers … meh. Both sides need to be good for the rivalry to draw an audience.
Now, Niners-Eagles. That could be a great one for years to come. Seeds are planted. Young coaches who won’t back down (Nick Sirianni 42, Kyle Shanahan 43), young quarterbacks Jalen Hurts and Brock Purdy launching promising careers, angry defenses that play chippy, an ejection of the leading tackler in the game …
… for what looked like Dre Greenlaw trying to rub shaving cream on Dom DiSandro’s face.
Dom DiSandro. Eagles director of security. The security guy, who is supposed to do the ejecting, got ejected too! Nice trade. The 49ers lose the leading tackler in the game. The Eagles lose the escort for Nick Sirianni.
“I tried my hardest not to lose my mind,” Niners coach Kyle Shanahan said.
“Pretty ridiculous,” said Christian McCaffrey of the 49ers, “that somebody without pads or a helmet on, let alone not even a coach, put hands on another player. I mean, if you know Dre, you’re flirting with danger there. I don’t know, man. I’ve never seen that before. We were pretty bummed that he got kicked out.”
But see, that’s the kind of thing that contributes to a bitter rivalry.
Great players are good for such a rivalry too. The 49ers had more of them Sunday in the 42-19 rout of the formerly 10-1 Eagles. Brock Purdy continued his magic carpet ride as the league’s most unlikely burgeoning franchise quarterback. Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk comprise the most physically gifted/imposing receiving duo in the game. George Kittle’s a blocking/catching metronome. And though this wasn’t McCaffrey’s noisiest of 25 games as a Niner, I thought the best thing he did all night was a bit of dirty work that closed out the game in the fourth quarter.
The best thing McCaffrey did is something that makes Kyle Shanahan call him a walk-on player in an all-pro body. It says much about him, and much about why the 49ers, today, are the most dangerous team in football.
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Christian McCaffrey had some fine plays, as he always does, in the surprising rout of the Eagles, a game that stamped the 49ers—at least this week—as the best all-around team in the game. Emphasis on all-around. Twenty touches, 133 yards, a TD. Pretty normal day at the office for the man who leads the league in rushing by 191 yards.
You had to look closely to see the real value of McCaffrey. It came on the insurance touchdown for the Niners, up 28-13 early in the fourth quarter, ball on the Philadelphia 18-yard line.
“We kind of expected blitz right there,” McCaffrey said. He was on the Niners’ plane at Philadelphia International Airport, just before takeoff back to California, almost two hours after the game.
“We talked a little bit before that, and we said Jauan [Jennings] was the hot receiver if they did end up bringing a zero blitz [seven rushers, no defenders deep].” McCaffrey’s job: picking up an unblocked blitzer somewhere near the middle of the line, if one came. “It’s part of playing the running-back position. The most important thing is protection and being able to sink your hips and block a linebacker up the middle.”
Here came linebacker Christian Ellis through the A gap, the unblocked man coming through a gaping hole where the center once was. McCaffrey, squat and set, met Ellis head-on around the 20-yard line and didn’t give an inch. In fact, the blitz pickup, per Next Gen Stats, was absolutely perfect. Seven rushers, zero pressure on Brock Purdy. He had time to spot Jennings out to the left, short, and dumped a strike to him. Jennings did the rest, scoring from 18 yards out. Ballgame.
What’s good to watch on the Niners is the attention to details small and big, famous and invisible.
“If you don’t pride in playing without the ball,” McCaffrey said, “whether it’s fakes or blitz pickups or blocking in space, you’re not going to play here. George Kittle’s the best [tight end] in the league because of what he does in the run game. Then you look on tape—you’ll see Jauan, Deebo and BA [Aiyuk] blocking 35 yards downfield. We keep a pretty high standard for it.”
The ball gets spread around pretty equitably. But even if McCaffrey goes a couple of games without starring or scoring, and it’s happened, you’re not going to hear anything out of him. Or out of Kittle, Aiyuk or Samuel either.
“I think we have a really unselfish team,” he said. “We just know that we have a lot of talented guys when they have the ball in their hands. It’s so important that we play to the whistle because you never know who’s gonna make the big play. It’s coached. It’s really coached. It’s coached every single day: Playing without the ball is something that all of us take a lot of pride in. That’s a massive standard for Kyle.”
The Niners had their three-game hiccup when left tackle Trent Williams and Samuel were hurt. That leaves them not much margin for error if they want to win home-field. Entering the last five weeks in the NFC, four teams are in play for it: Philadelphia 10-2, San Francisco 9-3, Detroit 9-3, Dallas 9-3. The 49ers have the tiebreaker over Dallas and Philadelphia because of head-to-head wins. They have the Seahawks, Ravens and Rams coming to Levi’s Stadium in weeks 14, 16 and 18, so the home stretch won’t be simple. But how they’ve played when healthy leaves me thinking San Francisco is likely a win over Baltimore at home on Christmas night away from winning the NFC’s lone bye. If healthy. Big if with this team.
McCaffrey missed 22 games due to injury his last two years in Carolina, but his health’s been pristine in San Francisco. He’s missed zero of 25 so far. He thinks he’s in football nirvana, with an imaginative offense, playing alongside guys who keep the main thing the main thing. “Pretty fun going to work every day when you’ve got unselfish guys who put the work in, do it the right way, and have fun doing it. I’m extremely fortunate to be here, man,” he said.
Read more in Peter King’s full Football Morning in America column.
