Charvarius Ward shut downs DK Metcalf and 49ers feast in Thanksgiving win over Seahawks
SEATTLE — Geno Smith must have thought he was being swallowed by an avalanche.
Early in the fourth quarter, after the Seattle Seahawks had wrestled momentum from the San Francisco 49ers and were threatening to bite more deeply into San Francisco’s lead, Smith got the ball back at his own 13-yard line. The drive began with high hopes from Seahawks fans that might witness a Thanksgiving comeback for the ages but ended like most of Smith’s drives did on Thursday — with a cascade of all-white uniforms crashing in on him for a third-down sack.
The 49ers defense was so overwhelming during the 31-13 win that the press box announcer twice declared a sack a “team sack” instead of trying to discern on the fly which 49ers had brought Smith to the turf.
“It’s funny,” Nick Bosa said afterward. “After the game, nobody has any idea what their stats are. It’s a good problem to have.”
For the record, Bosa and Arik Armstead were credited with a half-sack each on the fourth-quarter play, which came at a point at which the 49ers offense was sputtering and the Seahawks were clawing their way back into the contest. San Francisco’s defensive stop, however, seemed to settle the entire squad. After the Seahawks punted, the 49ers offense returned to looking as in-control as it did at the beginning of the contest with Brock Purdy inserting a final stake through the Seahawks’ heart with a 28-yard touchdown strike to Brandon Aiyuk .
For the second time since their bye week, the 49ers’ opponent failed to score an offensive touchdown. And the sacks that seemed so stagnant and hard to come by during a three-game skid flowed freely. The 49ers had six on Thursday and hit Smith, who was questionable for the game with an elbow injury, six more times beyond that.
“The way the defense played tonight was unbelievable,” Kyle Shanahan said afterward. “Just keeping them out of the end zone the whole game, the six sacks, the way I thought our corners played on the outside. Real impressive game. Real excited to watch it.”
“They beat us — simple as that,” Smith said. “Can’t make an excuse for it. It’s football, sports. Sometimes a team comes out and beats you. But the good thing about it is we got another chance to go against these guys in a few weeks. I think everyone has to take that personal. I know I am. We all got to take it personal. Can’t keep coming out here and letting them beat us like that.”
Bosa was one of the game’s standouts and led the team with two sacks. But the revitalized pass rush, perhaps more than it’s ever been in the past, was truly a team effort, something that was underscored by the number of players credited with a half-sack during the contest. The list included Bosa, Armstead, Javon Hargrave , Kevin Givens and Tashaun Gipson Sr.
The defensive linemen also credited a secondary that’s been forcing quarterbacks to hold onto the ball longer than they were earlier in the season.
As was the case in last year’s game in Seattle, cornerback Charvarius Ward was given the most ambitious assignment: shadowing the Seahawks’ biggest and most dangerous receiver, DK Metcalf , wherever he lined up.
Ward’s last opportunity in prime time, a Monday night game against the Minnesota Vikings , turned out poorly for him and he was fuming in the visitors locker room afterward. He had an interception in the first quarter in that game, but when he had an opportunity for a second one just before halftime, the ball slipped through his grasp and instead turned into a long Minnesota touchdown that was discussed and dissected for the next several weeks.
“I was really more mad at myself that I clearly had the ball in my hands and I let ’em take the ball out of my hands,” he said Thursday. “I wasn’t mad about the play call, the coaches, none of that. It was like, ‘Damn, I had a terrible game.’”
Ward, in fact, said that in his mind he’s having the worst season of his career and admitted he’s been affected by his team-high 10 penalties, many of which came during the 49ers’ three-game losing streak.
He said the infractions had him playing cautiously and that he hasn’t always been able to be the aggressive, combative cornerback he wants to be. Before Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers , in fact, he said one of the officials approached him during warmups and cautioned that they were going to be wary of over-physical play.
“I was like, ‘Damn. Why me?’” Ward said. “That kind of slowed me down last week as far as like having my hands on the receiver. If they just let me play my game and be myself I feel like I could be one of the best corners in the league. I hate the flags. The coaches have been telling me they’re not worried about the flags — just keep being me. But it’s obviously in my head.”
Against Metcalf, however, the officials let him play to his strength. Ward had two pass breakups on the Seahawks’ first series. He looked comfortable on two deep-ball attempts down the sideline to Metcalf, knocking away one of them. He also broke up a pass in the end zone. And though he was targeted nine times, Metcalf emerged from the game with only three catches for a season-low 32 yards.
Afterward, Ward joined several of his higher-profile teammates — Purdy, Christian McCaffrey and Bosa — as one of the 49ers tapped to enjoy Thanksgiving turkey on national television
“This is my first time playing on Thanksgiving, so I was kind of excited I was able to be one of the players of the game and get a turkey leg,” he said.
He noted he had a strong game against Metcalf during the regular season last year while Metcalf came back and had 10 catches for 136 yards during the teams’ playoff game.
“We’ve got another rematch in two weeks,” Ward said. “We’ll see how it goes.”
Thursday’s win over the Seahawks means it’s now been 663 days since the 49ers lost to a division opponent, the most recent defeat coming to the Los Angeles Rams in the 2021 NFC Championship Game. The 49ers also have beaten Seattle four straight times and every year the spell the Seahawks once had over them — especially in Seattle’s once seemingly impenetrable home stadium — fades a little further into the past.
Now the 49ers shift their focus to a bird of a different feather, the Philadelphia Eagles . The sentiment after their loss in Philadelphia in January was that it wasn’t a fair fight and that they were eager for a rematch when they were at full capacity, especially at the quarterback position.
On Thursday, however, most 49ers said they hadn’t been able to concentrate on that game yet and summon any of the emotions they had when the 2022 season ended.
“I haven’t really thought about it because we had to take care of business here,” Fred Warner said. “But we’ll be ready when that time comes.”
(Photo: Steph Chambers / )
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