ESPN comments kinder to Niners than the game
What you heard Tuesday wasn’t quite bad as what you saw Monday. If you are a 49ers fan.
Yes, the result stayed the same, the Baltimore Ravens with a 33-19 victory that was as resounding as perhaps it may have been surprising.
But the comments the morning after on ESPN, especially from retired long-time NFL players-turned-commentators Shannon Sharpe and Jeff Saturday, offered a bit of perspective.
If no particular advice on how to slow down the hype and excitement, nor stop Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson, who despite Brock Purdy and Christian McCaffrey, may be chosen the NFL Most Valuable Player. As he was in 2019.
That video in the Ravens post-game locker room at Levi’s Stadium Christmas night, of Harbaugh calling out his athletes one by one and then, when Jackson was presented everyone chanting, “MVP, MVP, MVP,” was tough to accept for the Faithful.
But accept it they must.
Amazing isn’t it how one game turns everything upside down and inside out? Purdy throws four interceptions. The Niners do little on offense and not much on defense.
They led 5-3 in the first quarter—or was it the first inning?—against the Baltimore Orioles?
The ESPN guys wondered why the Niners kept throwing instead of going to the run with McCaffrey. Or how Purdy, who is in his second pro season, would respond to the worst game of his brief but until now golden career.
The 49ers are 11-4, the best in the NFC, and if they recover after this jolt and in order beat the very, very beatable Washington Commanders and then the improving LA Rams, the Niners will have home field throughout the playoffs and a first-round bye.
“We’re going to find out a lot about Brock Purdy,” said Sharp. “He’ll be helped by (Kyle) Shannahan and (coach) Brian Griese.”
Shanahan, of course, is San Francisco’s head coach, and he’s known as an offensive genius. But this time the offense was ineffective against the Ravens, who with tactics devised by defensive coordinator Mike McDonald were able to stymie every Niners drive—until Purdy was picked off.
“The first one was his fault,” Shanahan said of Purdy’s interceptions. “The others were tipped balls.”
Purdy incurred a left-shoulder stinger in the fourth quarter, and with the Niners far behind was replaced by Darnold—who also had a pass picked off, five interceptions total for San Francisco.
Nine days ago, when the pre-game odds were favoring the Niners, Jackson, the Baltimore quarterback, whined that his team was being disrespected.
To steal a line from Edgar Allan Poe, whose 19th Century poem is responsible for the team’s name, Ravens, “Nevermore.”