The National Football League kicks off their “super” Wild Card Weekend today with a pair of games beginning with the San Francisco 49ers hosting the Seattle Seahawks in a contest set to kickoff at at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time. The second game today, pits the Jacksonville Jaguars at home against the Los Angeles Chargers in a contest set to begin at 5:15 p.m.
Tomorrow, the NFL will stage three Wild Card Games with the action beginning with the Miami Dolphins at Buffalo Bills and followed by the Minnesota Vikings entertaining the New York Giants. The late game finds the Baltimore Ravens at Cincinnati to battle the defending AFC Champion Bengals.
The weekend of NFL action concludes on Monday night when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers host the Dallas Cowboys.
In the first game today, the Seahawks and 49ers will battle in wet weather as the Bay Area continues to cut into their drought problems with heavy rainfall. The line on this game opened with the 49ers favored by ten points, a line that has dropped as much due to the weather as the matchup.
Coming into this season, no team in the league had given San Francisco more trouble than Pete Carroll’s Seahawks. Seattle had won 17 of the prior 20 games between these two NFC West Division opponents. This year, the 49ers swept the regular season series against Seattle that included a lopsided win in San Francisco in second week action, 27-7, and a victory on Monday night four weeks ago in Brock Purdy’s first road start.
The 49ers have what many consider the best defense in football, and an offense sprinkled with NFL stars. But the talk in the City by the Bay in recent weeks has been more focussed on the player they got with the last pick in last year’s NFL draft, Brock Purdy.
In the first game against Seattle, the 49ers lost quarterback Trey Lance to an injury for the season. Lance is the quarterback the 49ers acquired by making a trade to move up in the draft two years ago. Lance was named the starter in his second season over Jimmy Garoppolo before training camp even began, but after losing his first start this year in Chicago to the Bears, he was lost for the season with the injury suffered against Seattle.
The man the 49ers had looked to deal during the off-season but still had on their roster, Garoppolo, came off the bench and guided the 49ers to their first win of the season over Seattle and kept the 49ers in the hunt for the top spot in the West with wins in six of his nine starts. Then, in an eventual win over the Miami Dolphins on December 4, Garoppolo suffered an ankle injury that was first thought to end his 2022 campaign.
He was replaced by rookie Brock Purdy, who has burst on the scene with results that remind some of the success a young quarterback in New England enjoyed when he was thrown into action when Drew Bledsoe was injured in 2001. That quarterback was a sixth round draft choice, and Tom Brady has gone on to be crowned the best ever at his position.
In 2004, the Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback, Tommy Maddox, suffered a season ending injury and rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was pressed into duty. He guided the Steelers that year to win after win with his first professional loss suffered in the AFC Championship Game to Brady and his Patriots.
While Roethlisberger was a first round choice, chosen after Eli Manning and Phillip Rivers were taken off the board in the 2004 draft, Brady and Purdy were available to every team multiple times before being selected by the Patriots and 49ers respectively.
How good is Purdy?
So far, perfect.
He won his first professional start over Brady and the Patriots, 35-7. Won his first road game the following week in Seattle, and led the 49ers back from a double-digit road deficit two weeks ago in Las Vegas when the 49ers beat the Raiders in overtime.
Now, he looks to win his first postseason start.
Pretty heady stuff.
I think he’ll do it, but the weather and his inexperience does not entice me to lay 9½ points to see if it happens.
I’m not against the 49ers, but call a play on them today a rainout.
With nice weather in Jacksonville, Florida, I see the late game continuing on a smooth ride for the homesteading Jaguars.