49ers Remain Unable to Win in Minnesota
Back to back years with a loss in the Gopher State extends a 30+ year losing streak on the road in Minnesota...
For the second straight year the San Francisco 49ers traveled to Minnesota as favorite and left with a loss. This year’s game shared many similarities to last year’s 22-17 loss. Plenty of yards on offense but untimely turnovers negating any progress. A bend but don’t break defense that ultimately ran out of gas at the end and special teams unit that struggled to remain even a neutral factor. The 49ers came out flat in all three phases of the game surrendering over 400 yards on defense, giving up a blocked punt as well as 4 offensive turnovers (2 on downs), en route to a 23-17 loss.
While the defense had it’s struggles on Sunday, giving up a lot of yards and failing to get off the field on 3rd down - Minnesota was 7 for 12 on 3rd down - they did more than enough to win Sunday due to some opportunistic plays. Once again on the back of Fred Warner splash plays, the defense forced 2 turnovers, generated 4 sacks and held the Vikings to only 1 score in 3 trips to the red zone. In the end they ran out of steam trying to hold their ground as a 49ers offense that was so good a week ago with 31 points vs the Jets, failed to get going. An offense that didn’t to score more than 7 points until there were 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter.
A big reason the offense struggled for the second straight year was Minnesota DC Brian Flores. Flores’ defense was able to hold the 49ers to 325 yards and forced 3 turnovers in their Week 7 meeting last year and repeated an equally impressive performance this year, holding the 49ers offense to -0.08 EPA/P while creating 4 turnovers and 6 sacks. The way he did it? Blitzes and other exotic pressures to disrupt QB Brock Purdy.
After blitzing Purdy on 63% of his snaps in 2023, Flores went right back to the well in 2024 with an almost 50% blitz rate. While Purdy was able to complete some passes for chunk gains over the course of the game, he struggled down to down with getting the ball out quickly (his 3.08 time to throw against the blitz was the 7th longest in the NFL in Week 2). Purdy’s indecision led to 4 sacks and continually kept the offense from finding its rhythm.
Flores exotic blitz packages and other simulated pressures started to impact Purdy on even standard 4-man rushes, where he became skittish in the pocket and abandoned his reads in an uncharacteristic fashion.
Purdy himself even acknowledged Flores talents as a play caller, with some complimentary words after the game. VIDEO
The blame doesn’t all fall on the feet of Purdy. The offensive line, which gave up 17 pressures Sunday, struggled to pick up and pass off even basic stunts as the game progressed. HC Kyle Shanahan failed to get his signature play action going - SF only ran 3 plays of Play Action in Week 2 - despite a running game that over 100 yards on the ground.
Add in a couple missed opportunities, like 2nd year RB Jordan Mason missing his gap on a drive that ended on downs the next play and it was an overall poor performance by the offense - players and play callers alike.
Thankfully for San Francisco there are very few defenses or coordinators who have the tools to expose them in such a manner.
Next up is a match up with a familiar foe in the Los Angeles Rams. Both teams enter the contest banged up, with the 49ers who were already missing star RB Christina McCaffery, losing WR Deebo Samuel for a few weeks due to a calf strain, but still have enough to be favored versus a division rival who has post season hopes coming into the year.