The San Francisco 49ers season has not gone how they planned, with the team standing at 2-3 through five games with conference losses to the Los Angeles Rams and Arizona Cardinals already.
Next up? Their third divisional opponent, as the 49ers will travel on a short week to face the Seattle Seahawks in Week 6 on Thursday Night Football, with kickoff slated for 5:15 p.m.
The 49ers haven’t lost to Seattle since Russell Wilson was at quarterback, beating the Seahawks in each of their last five matchups, including the playoffs.
They come into Week 6 with a big opportunity, as a win would place San Francisco in first place in the NFC West, whereas a loss would drop them to a brutal 0-3 in the division, while also hurting their conference record in a big way.
Given the implications, both good with a win and bad with a loss, of Thursday night’s game, is this contest a must-win for the 49ers?
“It’s a lot of pressure,” defensive coordinator Nick Bosa acknowledged. “It’s not a must-win [because] technically, the season’s over if it’s a must-win, but definitely feels like we’re treating it that way.”
Head coach Kyle Shanahan noted that this week will present a different challenge, as the 49ers have to prepare for a short week, but that makes the time off even more enjoyable if the team can pull off the win.
“Yeah, in so many situations [is this game a big one],” Shanahan said ahead of the game. “Losing our last two divisional games, having one this week is huge, playing against Seattle is always huge, going up there is always huge. And then always in the NFL, it’s tough to get ready for a Thursday night game, but I think everyone enjoys them because it’s very rare that you get to sit back and kind of enjoy that for three days and watch the rest of the league. They’re a lot more fun when you win. When you get to sit back and be pissed off for three days, it’s not nearly as much fun.”
The challenge won’t be an easy one, however, as the 49ers will be going up against first-year head coach Mike MacDonald, whose defense gave San Francisco fits last year in an ugly Christmas loss to the Baltimore Ravens.
It was one of quarterback Brock Purdy’s roughest games statistically, as the 49ers signal-caller threw a whopping four interceptions in the loss, easily his most in a game.
In preparation for facing MacDonald’s defense for the second time, Purdy has amped up the film study, but noted that the personnel will be different with Seattle on Sunday.
“We’ve watched it a bunch just in terms of like what we’re trying to do, what their scheme was against our offense and our scheme,” Purdy said of the Ravens loss last season. And so watching it, obviously I’m watching how the game went and the decisions that I made and stuff and obviously learning from it. But more than anything, just when I do get in those situations again, handling everything in the right way in terms of getting to my answer and taking what the defense gives me and those kinds of things.”
“So it’s been really good watching, but at the same time, we’re playing a whole new personnel in the Seahawks and so should be a little bit different in that regard, just playing different players. But when it comes to the scheme versus scheme, it was good to watch the game last year against Baltimore. It was good.”
Seattle will be without some key players, as defensive tackle Byron Murphy, outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu, and cornerback Tariq Woolen have already been ruled out for the game. But, the 49ers will need to return to their standard if they want to pull off the victory here against a tough matchup in the 3-2 Seahawks.
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