SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Two of Brock Purdy’s worst performances in an otherwise stellar career came when he matched up against a Mike Macdonald-coached defense.
Now thanks to one of his more memorable moments when he led the short-handed San Francisco 49ers to a fourth-quarter comeback in a wild-card win at Philadelphia, Purdy gets another chance against Macdonald’s defense.
The 49ers (13-5) will take on Seattle (14-3) on Saturday night in a divisional round matchup two weeks after the Seahawks clinched the division title by shutting down Purdy and the San Francisco offense in a 13-3 win.
“He just does a good job of making the quarterback have to earn everything,” Purdy said. “I feel like there’s not a lot of easy gimme plays out there. You have to play quarterback for four quarters, be smart with the ball and go through your progressions truly. Then on top of that, the front, how they coach up the front with the push in the pocket, playing pretty deep to short on a lot of things and not allowing you to have a lot of explosive plays across the board. You have to go earn every single yard.”
This will be the fifth time that Purdy and the 49ers will face a defense run by Macdonald with the first coming on Christmas night in 2023 when Purdy threw a career-worst four interceptions in a 33-19 loss to Baltimore when Macdonald was defensive coordinator for the Ravens.
Macdonald turned that success in Baltimore into a head coaching job in Seattle starting in 2024, setting up two matchups each season against the 49ers.
Purdy got the best of the first matchup when he threw three touchdown passes in a 36-24 win last season in Seattle. But the Seahawks won the rematch in 2024, holding the Niners to just 17 points. Seattle allowed only 20 points in the two games this season as the Seahawks have been able to slow down San Francisco’s running game while playing primarily nickel defense with two deep safeties to cut down on big passes.
Purdy overcame two interceptions in the season opener to lead a fourth-quarter comeback for a 17-13 win but managed just 127 yards passing in the rematch in Week 18.
In five career matchups, Purdy has a 79.7 passer rating with six TD passes and eight interceptions.
“It’s a huge challenge, but the challenge is on us,” offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak said. “We got to run the ball better; we got to be better on third down so we can get more ops to run the ball. That’s really the biggest thing is we got to stay on the field so we can keep calling runs then hopefully, you can get the defense to commit another guy in the box, which helps other things.”
Purdy has performed well in the postseason and has a chance to become the sixth player ever with at least five straight playoff games with 250 or more yards passing and a touchdown.
But he has been at his best in clutch moments.
The Week 1 comeback in Seattle capped by an improbable 4-yard TD pass to Jake Tonges with 1:34 left was one of just four fourth-quarter comebacks by Purdy in 14 opportunities. Purdy ranks near the bottom of the league with a 63.8 passer rating when the Niners trail by less than eight points in the regular season, but he has risen to the moment when those chances have come in the postseason.
He engineered a comeback win in the 2023 division round against Green Bay and did it again last week in Philadelphia, when his 4-yard TD pass to Christian McCaffrey with 2:54 to play provided the go-ahead score in a 23-19 win.
Purdy also led San Francisco to a 17-point comeback against Detroit in the 2023 NFC title game, and threw a go-ahead TD pass and led two go-ahead drives for field goals in the fourth quarter and overtime in Super Bowl 58 when the Niners fell 25-22 to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
In all, Purdy has a 115.1 passer rating in his comeback attempts in the playoffs.
“I can’t say enough about Brock’s poise and his competitiveness there at the end of the fourth quarter,” Kubiak said. “I think Brock would tell you he didn’t play his best game for the first three quarters of that game. … But when it came down to the drives that mattered, the fourth quarter, the pressure of that moment, he was locked in. He didn’t blink. That’s kind of who he’s been his whole career to me.”
___
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
