SANTA CLARA, Calif. — If Nick Bosa wins the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year award, a fourth-quarter play on Christmas Eve is all the evidence voters need, and maybe it could sway some to consider him the league’s most valuable player.
The 49ers won, 37-20, win Saturday, but that eighth straight victory wasn’t looking like a lock, not until Bosa delivered a fumble-forcing sack with 14 minutes to go.
It was Bosa’s second sack of the game, it raised his NFL lead to 17 1/2 on the season, and it created a fumble that Jordan Willis recovered at the Washington Commanders’ 11-yard line.
The 49ers (11-4) converted that takeaway into just a field goal, but Bosa’s play sent an emphatic message that this playoff run remains fueled by the NFL’s most suffocating defense.
The 49ers’ playoff picture has them still as the NFC’s No. 3-seed, seeing how the Minnesota Vikings (12-3) pulled out a 27-24 home win over the New York Giants (8-6-1). Next up for the NFC West-champion 49ers is their debut in Las Vegas against the Raiders on New Year’s Day, then it’s back home to close the regular season against the Arizona Cardinals.
Explosive plays on offense got the 49ers their touchdowns, starting with Ray-Ray McCloud’s 71-yard, end-around run in the first half, and followed by George Kittle’s touchdowns on 34- and 33-yard receptions in the third quarter. Robbie Gould went 3 for 3 on field-goal attempts in the fourth quarter to pad the lead.
Kittle, coming off a two-touchdown effort in last game’s division-clinching win at Seattle, finished with 120 yards on six catches, the final of which was a 10-yard, fourth-down conversion to set up Christian McCaffrey’s 1-yard touchdown run with 2:13 left.
Those were easily enough points to outlast the playoff-contending Commanders (7-7-1). Even after Carson Wentz threw a fourth-quarter touchdown pass with 5:25 left, Bosa tackled Wentz on an ensuing two-point conversion attempt; it didn’t qualify as a sack because it was not a play from scrimmage.
Brock Purdy improved to 3-0 as the 49ers’ starting quarterback, completing 15 of 22 passes for 234 yards, with two touchdowns and an interception (that Jauan Jennings juggled into the air). The 49ers’ run game struggled to find success with McCaffrey (15 carries, 46 yards) and Ty Davis-Price, whose nine carries (30 yards) were his first in two months; Jordan Mason (hamstring) was restricted to special-teams duty.
Bosa wasn’t the only defensive star, of course.
In the first half, the 49ers made a goal-line stand, and, 5:43 before the fourth quarter, they stopped Taylor Heinicke’s fourth-and-1 sneak from the Commanders’ 34-yard line. It was a defend-every-blade-of-grass mentality that linebacker Dre Greenlaw described a month ago, when the 49ers’ goal-line stands (in that same south end zone) preserved a 13-0 shutout of the Saints on Nov. 27.
This goal-line stand kept the score 0-0 and ended a 17-play, 10-minute march by the Commanders, 9:32 before halftime. Dre Greenlaw, Fred Warner and Akeem Spence came through with run stops on third- and fourth-and-goal from the 1. Warner had a season-high 13 tackles.
The 49ers converted their defense’s goal-line stand into an ensuing, 99-yard touchdown drive to take a 7-0 lead, the score coming on McCloud’s 71-yard, end-around run down the right sideline. Willie Snead IV and Kittle provided key blocks to clear a lane for McCloud’s first touchdown run this season — and the longest by a 49er since Raheem Mostert’s 80-yard scoring spring in Week 2 of 2020.
The 49ers quickly snapped a 7-7 halftime tie when Kittle beat teammate McCloud to Brock Purdy’s 34-yard scoring strike down the middle, 4 1/2 minutes into the second half. That drive opened with 13-yard completions to Brandon Aiyuk and Kittle, then, after three runs from McCaffrey and one by Davis-Price, Purdy went to the air and spied Kittle (and McCloud) zipping past Washington’s safeties.
The Commanders pulled even at 7 only 22 seconds before halftime, when they exploited perhaps the 49ers defense’s weakest link — coverage and/or communication breakdowns involving Talanoa Hufanga and cornerback Deommodore Lenoir. Jahan Dotson slipped behind them in the back of the end zone to catch a 4-yard touchdown pass from Heinicke. Setting up that tying drive was the first interception in Purdy’s three starts — a tad-low pass juggled by Jennings and nabbed by Darrick Forrest at the 49ers’ 31-yard line.
Those kicks came after the Commanders pulled within 21-14, on Heinicke’s 3-yard touchdown pass to Terry McLaurin 2:46 before the fourth quarter. Two snaps earlier, McLaurin caught a 51-yard pass against Sam Womack, who was filling in for the nautious Charvarius Ward.
The 49ers’ marquee position group, their defensive line, underwent a makeover with the return of Javon Kinlaw to the starting lineup after a three-month, 11-game hiatus because of a knee isue. off injured reserve and the debut of Michael Dwumfour from the practice squad. Meanwhile, rookie Drake Jackson was a healthy scratch for his first absence as a pro, and Kerry Hyder Jr. (ankle) also missed his first game of the season.
