After fighting through a season riddled with injuries, the San Francisco 49ers finally ran out of answers on the road against the NFC's top-seeded Seattle Seahawks.
The 49ers shorthanded offense without tight end George Kittle couldn't find any rhythm in Saturday's 41-6 Divisional Round loss, which began with Seattle returner Rashid Shaheed scoring a 95-yard touchdown on the game's opening kickoff.
It was a historic loss for the 49ers and head coach Kyle Shanahan, with the 35-point defeat marking the second-largest margin in a playoff game in franchise history, per NFL Research. Despite that, Shanahan views the outcome the same even if it was a close game.
"No, it's a loss," Shanahan said after suffering one of the worst defeats of his coaching career. "So, it's very understandable to see how it got away. We'll do that from a football standpoint, and you evaluate it throughout the offseason. But it was a tough playoff loss, but definitely don't make more of it than it was, it was a loss."
The 49ers looked rattled in front of the 12s after Shaheed's TD whipped Lumen Field into a frenzy (much like Marshawn Lynch's Beast Quake TD run in the 2010 playoffs). Niners quarterback Brock Purdy struggled versus Seattle's top-ranked defense, completing 15 of 27 passes for 140 yards, zero touchdowns and one interception.
Regardless of such a pummeling, Purdy still believes the 49ers are "100 percent" capable of winning a Super Bowl in the near future.
"I believe we have the right guys," Purdy told reporters. "Obviously it didn't end the way we wanted it to. But I really do think with some guys getting healthy and what we stand for and how we always bounce back, I feel like our backs were against the wall really all season with guys going down, but we always found a way.
"So, I think once we're 100 percent and feel good about ourselves and learn, we'll be just fine."
As Purdy mentioned, health was an issue throughout the 49ers' 2025 season. Purdy was one of many players on the roster who missed time due to injury. Purdy, Kittle, offensive tackle Trent Williams and wide receivers Ricky Pearsall and Jauan Jennings all got banged up during the year. Kittle, in particular, missed six regular-season contests and left San Francisco's wild-card win with a torn Achilles. The defense was also bitten by the injury bug. Pass rusher Nick Bosa (torn ACL) and linebacker Fred Warner (ankle) both suffered season-ending injuries, and even breakouts that replaced them such as Tatum Bethune went down.
Star running back Christian McCaffrey, who dealt with Achilles, calf and knee injuries in 2024, was one of the rare healthy bodies all year leading into Sunday. But the All-Pro was held in check by Seattle's defense for 35 rushing yards on 11 carries and five receptions for 39 yards, and he suffered a stinger that seemed painful enough to keep him out had the stakes been different. Instead, he returned to the game and battled through pain despite the Seahawks' big lead in the second half.
McCaffrey reflected on the challenging season following what had largely been a lost 2024 campaign for him.
"It takes time to process this stuff. This was one of the hardest years of my life," he said. "Everything that happened to me last year, I kind of had to overcome a lot of odds. From the time on January 1st happened, I was rehabbing and working my butt off every single day. My wife went through it. There was not a lot of time off. And so again, I think it's obvious we're not proud of the way it ended, but when I look back at all the people that helped me out and the people that were with me every step of the way and believed in me when a lot of people didn't, and I appreciate that."
Shanahan had praise for McCaffrey, who logged a career-high 413 touches in the regular season for 2,126 scrimmage yards (1,202 rushing and 924 receiving).
"I think this was one of the most impressive seasons by an individual player ever," Shanahan said of CMC. "Just in terms of what a warrior and man he is week in, week out. People who do that every week, to do it for 17 weeks in a row, not getting a bye week until December, and then to do it these last two games, like, Christian finds a way every week.
"He commits himself 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to get his body possible to go out there and compete. I've never been around anything like that. The dude was unbelievable."
Even with all the injuries, the 49ers went 12-5 in the regular season and had a chance in Week 18 to secure the NFC's No. 1 seed. They instead came up short against Seattle -- and again fell to the Seahawks two weeks later.
Despite Purdy's optimism and many impactful players set to come back with the mindset of a healthy 2026, there will still be challenges to repeating a season with as many successes. For instance, both offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak and defensive coordinator Robert Saleh have received widespread interest in the ongoing head coaching cycle.
Shanahan, who's seen plenty of coordinators move onto bigger jobs and even lost Saleh to the New York Jets for a few years, is aware of the possibility he'll need to reset if one or both coaches leave this offseason.
"They've been unbelievable. I love both those guys," he said of his both coordinators. "Two as good of coaches I've been around and both will be head coaches, whether it's in a week or so or whether it's over the next two years. We're lucky to have those guys, and for our sake I hope we'll still have them next year."
No matter what changes come and regardless of the lopsided loss that ended San Francisco's season, the 49ers showed fight all year and will surely continue to in the future.
