Giants vs. 49ers LIVE: Recap & analysis (2024)

The San Francisco 49ers held the ball nearly twice as long as the New York Giants and got big games from their stars to win 30-12 on “Thursday Night Football”. Here’s what you need to know:

• 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy set a regular-season career high with 310 passing yards to go along with two touchdowns.
• San Francisco’s Christian McCaffrey racked up 119 yards from scrimmage and a touchdown, while Deebo Samuel added 129 yards and a touchdown on six catches.
• 49ers rookie receiver Ronnie Bell, a 2023 seventh-round pick, notched his first career reception and touchdown on a 9-yard pass from Purdy.

Read more here.

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The short week began with San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Steve Wilks calling a meeting of the team’s defensive backs. His message was simple. The 49ers, after correcting some loose pass coverage issues around halftime during Sunday’s win over the Los Angeles Rams, would aggressively attack the New York Giants from the jump on the back end.

“(Wilks) told us we’re playing a lot of man coverage,” 49ers safety Tashaun Gipson Sr. said after the 49ers whipped the Giants, 30-12. “That was the challenge for us on the back end in that meeting. And I think we answered that call — 137 yards passing.”

New York quarterback Daniel Jones managed a paltry 4.3 yards per attempt against mostly airtight coverage. Jones had tried to replicate the strategy employed by Rams’ quarterback Matthew Stafford on Sunday — a passing attack based on quick releases to combat the 49ers’ pass rush — but he failed to do so with any efficiency. The coverage was just too tight, and that set the table for a 49ers’ pass-rushing breakthrough a week after the team’s defensive linemen hadn’t notched a sack despite constantly pressuring Stafford.

Read more here.

There was a point in Thursday night’s game that it was possible to draw some encouragement from an undermanned Giants team fighting a loaded 49ers roster. The Giants had scrapped and clawed their way to within one score, 17-12, early in the third quarter.

It felt like the same script the overachieving Giants followed last season, when they’d hang around with teams just long enough to steal a victory. But there has been little magic in this year’s version of the Giants.

The 49ers scored the next 13 points to pull away for a comfortable 30-12 win. The box score illustrated San Francisco’s dominance: A 441-150 edge in total yards; a 26-10 advantage in first downs; a 39:10-20:50 difference in time of possession.

Yes, the Giants were without running back Saquon Barkley (ankle) and left tackle Andrew Thomas (hamstring), as well as left guard Ben Bredeson (concussion) and outside linebacker Azeez Ojulari (hamstring). But for the second time in three weeks, the Giants were dealt a sobering reminder that they haven’t closed the gap on the NFC’s elite teams.

Aside from an inspired second-half comeback win over the Cardinals in Week 2, the Giants have been thoroughly outclassed this season. They’ve been out-scored 70-12 in their two losses to the Cowboys and 49ers. These types of lopsided games weren’t supposed to happen to a Giants team that made major investments to upgrade the roster that got pummeled 38-7 by the Eagles in the NFC Divisional Round last season.

“It’s been a lot of football that we don’t feel like is reflective of our best and what we’re capable of and we feel like the fans deserve, the organization deserves,” tight end Darren Waller said.

The Giants have time to lick their wounds after playing two road games in a five-day stretch. Their next game is a Monday Night Football matchup with the Seahawks on Oct. 2. That’s a pivotal game with trips to Miami and Buffalo after that.

“Two games in five days is tough for anyone,” Waller said. “We can start game-planning for the Seahawks and take care of winning at home. That’s something we didn’t do in Week 1. I feel like that’s a good way to build some momentum.”

Here are three takeaways from the loss.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — On a short week with a shorthanded roster, the New York Giants defense did everything within its power to create chaos Thursday night against the San Francisco 49ers. Chaos has a way of leveling the playing field, and in a matchup against the supremely talented 49ers, a team with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations, the Giants — without star running back Saquon Barkley, without All-Pro left tackle Andrew Thomas and without talented pass rusher Azeez Ojulari — needed to do something to try to even the odds.

So they sent the house.

Wink Martindale, already one of the blitz-happiest defensive coordinators in the NFL, cranked the dial way up, sending blitzes at young 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy on 33 of his 39 dropbacks (84.6 percent). According to Next Gen Stats, it was the highest blitz rate in a game they had ever tracked.

The idea was simple: Speed Purdy up and hope he cracked under the pressure. It almost worked, too. Actually, it did work fairly well early on. Under duress, Purdy put a few balls in jeopardy, but the Giants just couldn’t capitalize. After the 49ers withstood Martindale’s initial ambush, well, they were able to move the ball with ease up and down the field.

Read more on Thursday's game here.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The San Francisco 49ers didn’t have much of a downfield passing game on Thursday.

But they did have Deebo Samuel, and he was more than enough in a 30-12 win over the New York Giants.

As he did throughout his star-making 2021 season, Samuel took a series of short, blitz-beating passes and turned them into huge gains, trampling over defenders along the way. He finished with 129 receiving yards — his highest total since Week 15 in 2021 — with roughly half his total coming after the catch.

The 49ers’ offensive linemen had front-row seats to the show.

“It was happening right in front of me,” center Jake Brendel said. “And it was awesome. It’s a motivation for all of us to do better, to try to hustle down the field and get a block. The play’s never over with that guy.”

Read more on Deebo Samuel here.

49ers QB Brock Purdy threw for 310 yards in Thursday’s win over the Giants, his first career 300-yard passing game in the regular season (Purdy had 332 passing yards in Wild Card win vs. Seahawks last season).

Purdy also threw two touchdown passes against the Giants, the eighth time in his last nine regular season appearances he’s thrown for multiple scores. Since that span began in Week 13 of last season, Purdy’s eight multi-pass TD games lead all NFL players (Patrick Mahomes is second with six).

Robert Mays and Nate Tice discuss the Giants' frustrating 1-2 start and where things can go from here on The Athletic Football Show.

Watch the full clip here.

Giants coach Brian Daboll breaks down a big reason why his team lost: "When you're not converting third downs and you're giving up some third downs, there's time of possession. Defense gets tired, we're not out on the field offensively enough. It's a collective thing."

The Giants converted just 3-of-12 third downs. The 49ers were 9-of-16 (and much more efficient before running out the clock late). That led to San Francisco hanging onto the ball for 38:39 in this game.

The 49ers outgained the Giants 441 to 150 in total yards tonight. The 291-yard disparity is the…

• Largest in any game so far this season
• Best showing by the 49ers in any game since 2012 (+417 in Week 5 vs. Bills)
• Worst showing by the Giants in any game since 2012 (-347 in Week 16 vs. Ravens)

Here are my fantasy football takeaways from tonight’s Giants-49ers game.

1. Christian McCaffrey is living up to his No. 1 ADP so far this year, as he has now posted 22+ PPR points in three straight games. Key to this has been CMC averaging 20 carries per game, which shows that Kyle Shanahan isn’t rotating him out of the backfield very often.
2. It looks like all George Kittle needed was to get a favorable matchup in order to post a strong point total, as the Giants subpar coverage led to Kittle racking up 16 PPR points tonight. Kittle has many favorable matchups in the second half of the year, so he may be worth trading for even at a premium.
3. This is only the second time that Deebo Samuel has posted consecutive games with 20+ PPR points, so he looks to be back to his consistent elite form.
4. Darren Waller’s struggles continue, as he has now posted 6.6 or fewer PPR points in two of the first three weeks. Waller does have some favorable matchups coming up, with four green-rated matchups in the next six weeks, so he may be a good trade for low candidate, but there is some risk given his inconsistency and injury track record.
5. Daniel Jones turned last week around with a great second half that had him throwing long passes and rushing for plenty of yards and a touchdown, but in the other two weeks of the season, he has combined to score 8.44 points. The lack of pass blocking is a big part of it, but the net is that Jones may be a sit candidate until the Giants can get that area addressed.

Wink Martindale's Giants defense threw the kitchen sink at Brock Purdy and the 49ers offense tonight. It wasn't enough. The defense was overexposed, on the field for nearly 40 minutes with their offense unable to sustain drives. Give San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan that many opportunities to come at you, and he's almost always going to find a way to beat you.

Purdy put a couple of balls in jeopardy early, but eventually, he settled in and they put together 441 yards worth of offense.

Robert Mays and Nate Tice are going live shortly to break down the 49ers' win over the Giants on Thursday Night Football.

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The 49ers improve to 3-0 with the win, their first 3-0 start since 2019 when they started 8-0 and reached the Super Bowl.

San Francisco has reached the playoffs in each of the last six seasons it started at least 3-0 including a pair of Super Bowl-winning seasons (1984 and 1989).

Deebo Samuel has posted a lot of impact games in his career and has continued that trend tonight, as his 25.1 PPR points marks the second consecutive game with 20+ PPR points for Samuel.

That is not as common of an occurrence as one might think, as it is only the second time that Samuel has posted consecutive games with 20+ PPR points (Weeks 7-8 of the 2021 season being the other time, per Stathead).

The 49ers have reached the 30-point mark in three out of three games, and they’ve done so with 6 minutes left in this game.

Despite the incorrect hysterics on this social media, Brock Purdy has played very well — again.

The Giants have given up 30 points, and it doesn't even feel like the defense has played bad. Wink Martindale's group definitely could tighten some things up, but it's been tough with little help from the offense. The 49ers are crushing the Giants in time of possession, nearly 37 minutes to 17. The Giants' defense has been on the field a lot.

Per Stathead, this is the first time since 1998 (and sixth time in franchise history) that the 49ers have scored 30-plus points in each of their first three games in a season.

Looking for a telling stat so far tonight? Third-and-long conversions.

The Giants are 0-for-5 on third-and-6-or-longer tonight. The 49ers are 4-for-9 on such conversion attempts and all four came on drives that ended with points (10 total).