The San Francisco 49ers brief view of the winning side of things came to an end in Week 12. The Seattle Seahawks beat the 49ers by a final score of 24-13. The 49ers drop to 1-10 with the loss, while the Seahawks improve to 7-4. The 49ers were formally eliminated from the playoff race with the Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers winning earlier, but this loss put a cherry on top.
Fooch’s update: As I was writing this, Jimmy Garoppolo came in the game after C.J. Beathard suffered a knee injury and completed two passes, including a touchdown. Beathard suffered the injury with 1:07 to go. Garoppolo scrambled four yards on his first play, converted a 4th and 6 with a 9-yard pass to Aldrick Robinson, and then capped it with a 10-yard touchdown pass to Louis Murphy. This week should be interesting.
The game was actually close into the third quarter. Serious wind made field goals and kickoffs difficult, and the game was scoreless through the first quarter. The Seahawks took a touchdown lead, but the 49ers responded with late second quarter and early third quarter field goals to cut the lead to 7-6. They had Seattle at 3rd and 9, and Russell Wilson apparently bottled up. However, he found Doug Baldwin for 23 yards. The Seahawks followed that with a 24-yard pass, a six-yard run, and a 17-yard pass to get the touchdown.
The 49ers followed that up with a three-and-out, and Seattle responded with an 11-play touchdown drive to take a 21-6 lead. C.J. Beathard and company could get nothing going and the Seahawks finished things off. The offensive line was a mess, and when Beathard did have some time, he struggled with some of his connections. Beathard’s top-targeted pass catcher was Carlos Hyde, who he targeted 12 times on the day. Hyde finished with six receptions for 19 yards, which just about sums this thing up.
The defense showed some solid work for the first half, but things fell apart from them with that second touchdown drive. They would give up the third touchdown, but the 49ers offense could not respond in any way. The offense deserves more blame in this one, although I would put it as much on the offensive line as anything else. It was an ugly performance.
Up next: @ Chicago Bears
The 49ers don’t have many winnable games left, but this could be one of them. The Bears defense has been impressive most of the season, but they were thumped in a bad way by the Philadelphia Eagles this past week. The big question this week will be whether or not Jimmy Garoppolo gets a chance to start, so we looked forward to numerous questions about that.