SANTA CLARA – Kyle Shanahan just emerged from coaching the 49ers to their 10th win this uber-challenging season, and before he was done discussing Sunday’s fourth straight win, things got personal.
“Any plans for your birthday?” a reporter asked.
“Any playoffs?” Shanahan replied, perhaps in a Freudian slip at the ripe age of 46. “Oh, plans? Probably go home and have a couple of drinks. I usually hate my birthday. … I haven’t had a lot of success on it.”
Well, this year certainly is different on many levels for the 49ers, who have overcome injuries to key players and continue to stack wins.
With Sunday’s 37-24 triumph over the Tennessee Titans, the 49ers’ record improved to 10-4 overall, essentially sealing at least a wild-card playoff spot while keeping a higher seed in play, perhaps even the NFC’s No. 1 spot.
The 49ers entered Sunday as the No. 6 seed, and that’s where they remain after NFC West rivals Los Angeles (11-3) and Seattle (11-3) each rallied to post Week 15 home wins.
“Every game from this moment on is a huge game for us, whether it’s seeding or just trying to make it into the playoffs,” tight end George Kittle said.
Next for the 49ers is their final away game this regular season, a Monday night visit to the Indianapolis Colts, before coming back to Levi’s Stadium for more meaningful NFC matchups against the Chicago Bears (10-4) and the Seahawks.
“Whatever it is, I want to play games in January and the only way to (definitely) do that is to beat every single team,” Kittle added. “We were pretty hyper-focused. No one was thinking, ‘Oh, it’s just the Titans.’”
And yet, the Titans fell to 2-12.
The only other time Shanahan won on his birthday as an NFL coach: also against the Titans, in 2008 when he was the Houston Texans’ offensive coordinator. Beyond that, the only other time he coached on his birthday: a 30-0 loss as the 2014 Cleveland Browns’ offensive coordinator against Cincinnati, a loss he mourned by going on a late-night, freezing-cold ride on a Vespa scooter, his birthday present.
Shanahan got a game ball for Sunday’s efforts, and when two-touchdown scorer Jauan Jennings was asked what he gifted Shanahan, Jennings replied: “I got him a win. What else is there?”
The backdrop to Sunday’s showcase was former 49ers tight end Brent Jones’ induction into the franchise’s hall of fame. Jones is such an admirer of this current team’s resiliency that he said it “might be the most rewarding season” he has followed since his playing days (1987-97).
“You don’t get to this point without having special guys in the locker room,” Jones said. “Not just that, but the coaching staff has stepped it up, it’s just, not supposed to be this way, and so it’s been really rewarding to watch, and you just know that there’s something special going on in the locker room.”
Brock Purdy feasted on the Titans for the most productive game of his injury-shortened season. Beyond throwing for 295 yards and three touchdowns, Purdy proved highly entertaining with his scrambling ability, to say nothing of a fourth-and-1 conversion plunge.
Purdy unleashed a career-long, 26-yard scramble — the 49ers’ longest run all season — in the third quarter. An open-field pump fake fooled linebacker Jihad Ward, and then Purdy showed the ball to linebacker Cody Barton before bailing out of bounds.
“I honestly thought that was dumb, the whole ball fake at the end. I was like ‘Bro, what did I just do?’” said Purdy, who apologized to Barton the second the play ended.
Still, that sparked a 95-yard drive that ended with Purdy throwing a 1-yard touchdown pass to George Kittle, for a 31-10 lead.
Purdy’s other two touchdown passes found Jennings on the 49ers’ first drives of each half.
The 49ers’ other points came from Eddy Piñeiro, who returned from a two-game hiatus and made his three field-goal attempts for a 25-of-25 mark this season. Piñeiro did miss a 51-yard try in the fourth quarter, but a Titans penalty nullified it.
Setting the tone right away were each team’s opening drives: After Cam Ward and the Titans went three-and-out, the 49ers went on a 70-yard touchdown drive, starting with completions to Ricky Pearsall (8 yards) and Kittle (9, 24) before a 4-yard scoring strike to Jennings gave the 49ers a lead they’d never relinquish.
Neither Thursday’s illness nor Saturday’s back injury nor the Titans’ goal-line defense could stop Christian McCaffrey from his ninth rushing touchdown in nine games. That crowned the 49ers’ second series, which was highlighted by Demarcus Robinson’s 29-yard third-down catch and his open-field block later on Kittle’s 24-yard grab to the 8-yard line.
Jennings’ second touchdown came on the 49ers’ opening drive after halftime, with Purdy finding him on a 13-yard dart at the front right pylon. Purdy opened that series with a 14-yard pass-and-run to McCaffrey, then came a 38-yard dart to Pearsall on a crossing route that resembled one last year in which Deebo Samuel dropped Purdy’s pass.
The Titans crept within 14-10 when Cam Ward fired a 34-yard touchdown pass to Gunnar Helm before safety Ji’Ayir Brown could halt that score, 7:43 until halftime.
Tennessee didn’t score again until early in the fourth quarter, when Ward threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to defensive stalwart Jeffrey Simmons for a 31-17 deficit, and that came right after a 43-yard bomb to Van Jefferson.
The 49ers kept each of their previous two opponents under 10 points, but in this one, the Titans even scratched out two touchdowns in the fourth quarter – the pass to Simmons and a 6-yard run by Tony Pollard.
The 49ers’ best defensive effort came on a goal-line stand in the first half, using tackles from Dee Winters (7-yard loss) and Cle Ferrell (no gain on third-and-goal) to force a 25-yard field goal from Joey Slye.
That defense sustained the worst casualty Sunday even before kickoff, when starting defensive tackle Jordan Elliott hurt his knee stretching in the locker room. In the game, Pearsall hurt an ankle on the opening snap and battled through it, only to aggravate a season-long knee injury in the final minutes on a third-down conversion catch.
Pearsall finished with a team-high 96 yards, and Kittle had 88 yards, keying a receiver unit that officially won’t have Brandon Aiyuk as part of it this season after the 49ers designated him Saturday on the “reserve/left squad” list.
