SANTA CLARA — Following three straight losses, staring down a daunting injury report and a deficit in the NFC West standings, the 49ers’ once-promising season seemed to be going up in flames.
Within just the first few snaps taken by quarterback Caleb Williams in a 38-13 drubbing of the Bears on Sunday afternoon, though, something else had caught fire.
“It was smoking hot,” said defensive end Leonard Floyd of the 49ers’ pass rush, which rose from the embers of Nick Bosa’s three-game absence to put the Bears’ rookie quarterback under constant duress and helped the team get back in the win column for the first time since Nov. 10.
Floyd recorded two of the 49ers’ six team sacks — matching a season-high from their Week 4 win against New England — and they got to Williams for a seventh time, forcing a fumble in San Francisco territory that didn’t count toward their sack total.
Without Bosa, the 49ers had gotten to opposing quarterbacks twice in their past two games — not once last week in Buffalo.
“I wouldn’t say it was difficult without him, but it’s obviously easier with him,” Floyd said of Bosa, who has been sidelined with left hip and oblique injuries since a Week 11 loss to Seattle. “I’d rather it be easier than harder. But the difference today was every man in the room went out and played their best. Went out and had great games. From me, from Maliek (Collins), from Jordan (Elliott), just the whole room came out and played hard.”
The 49ers received the opening kick, drove the field and scored in a matter of five plays.
By the time the Bears moved the chains for the second time — on their first possession of the third quarter — they trailed 24-0, had been outgained by nearly 300 yards and had taken four sacks. In total, their 162 yards amounted to the 49ers’ fewest allowed all season.
Williams, the first overall pick in this year’s draft, used his athleticism to create some plays and didn’t throw an interception. But the 49ers’ secondary, which returned safety Talanoa Hufanga from injured reserve, was satisfied to provide support for their front seven.
“We’ve just got to do our job on the back end, play sticky coverage and give our guys enough time to get into the pass rush,” safety Malik Mustapha said. “Caleb is a guy that doesn’t want to turn the ball over a lot, so we knew he was going to take some sacks. We had guys up front that were hounding and getting to the ball.”
It has been a next-man-up type of season for the 49ers, and Sunday’s win was no exception.
Their pass rush was led by a newcomer who spent most of the season on IR, and their one turnover was recovered by a rookie who went undrafted.
In his fourth game back since suffering a knee injury in Week 4, Yeter Gross-Matos got to Williams a team-high three times, including on back-to-back plays in the fourth quarter. It earned him Hufanga’s ceremonial Kukui Nut necklace, which the Tongan safety presents to a teammate after each game.
“You could see it, the way he out-physicaled some guys, it was awesome,” said Hufanga, who had been out since Week 5 with a torn ligament in his wrist. “I told the D-line to get a good picture.”
In San Francisco territory for only the second time all game, the Bears weren’t able to make good on their threat when the San Francisco pressure collapsed the pocket again on Williams and he fumbled behind the line of scrimmage, only for Evan Anderson to fall on it.
It was one of only two sacks that didn’t come on third down, but the timing proved to be even more opportune.
“We practiced running to the ball and extra effort,” Anderson said. “So I think it was just the DNA of the 49ers team. It looked like he threw the ball, but when I saw it on the ground, I hadn’t heard the whistle, so I just dove on it just in case.”
Anderson, an undrafted rookie out of Florida Atlantic, listened to coach Kyle Shanahan, cornerback Deommodore Lenoir and quarterback Brock Purdy speak up more than usual at practice, emphasizing the importance of their remaining schedule. After three straight losses, their season wasn’t over yet. But with one more, it might be.
Defensive line coach Kris Kocurek also implored Floyd, a veteran in his first year in San Francisco, to be more vocal at practice.
“I’ve got a lot of experience and I’ve been in tough situations where we have to win the rest of our games. It can be done, it just takes a certain mindset to get it done. So that’s what I’ve been preaching, to get the job done,” Floyd said. “… I usually lead with my actions, how I practice and how I play. But Coach (Kocurek) challenged me to talk a little more and be a little more vocal, and I did it.”
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The message resonated, apparently.
With his pair of sacks, Floyd (8.5) took over the team lead from Bosa (7) and is one away from reaching nine for the fifth straight season.
“I mean, Bosa kinda gave me two games off. The job ain’t finished. The job ain’t finished until we make it to the playoffs. So it don’t matter unless we win the rest of these games,” Floyd said. “We were preaching before practice if we come out and have a playoff-type practice, run to the ball, everybody moving, and we just carry that for the full week, we should have a great game. We should have a great game when we have a playoff mentality. And we came out and did it.”
