By admin 
SANTA CLARA – All the 49ers’ worries paused Sunday once Brock Purdy completed a fourth-quarter touchdown pass to George Kittle. The football got spiked, the fireworks went off, and the Faithful high-fived in the late-afternoon sun.
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But the Arizona Cardinals answered with a touchdown, so it took another Purdy-to-Kittle touchdown to secure the undefeated 49ers’ 36-30 victory at Levi’s Stadium.
Purdy’s 10- and 20-yard touchdown passes to Kittle sent fans home happy, as seemingly scripted on Kittle-bobblehead giveaway day. “Was it really?” Purdy asked as he headed for the exits.
As is their weekly way, the 49ers (3-0) had to overcome significant injuries to a withering roster. Both wide receiver Mike Evans (rib) and left tackle Trent Williams (neck stinger) got taken off by cart to the locker room, Evans appearing in more pain as he left behind an already thin unit of wide receivers.
The Cardinals (1-2) predictably mounted a second-half comeback, as injuries already had decimated the 49ers’ defense, including the loss of Nick Bosa to a calf injury in mere warmups for Thursday’s practice. It was not until Deebo Samuel recovered an onside kick with 33 seconds left that victory was secured.
Purdy passed for 297 yards with four touchdown passes, threw no interceptions and, for the third straight game, was not sacked.
“I’m very confident with Brock throwing the ball and I feel I’ve always been very confident,” coach Kyle Shanahan said.
He had a potential 45-yard touchdown scramble wiped out by a Kittle holding penalty, but Kittle made amends with a 20-yard touchdown catch near the right pylon with 1:31 remaining, “in typical George fashion,” Purdy said.
Earlier, midway through the fourth quarter, Purdy found Kittle over the middle for a 10-yard scoring pass. Arizona answered with a 14-play, 68-yard touchdown drive capped by Jacoby Brissett’s 1-yard run.
While Christian McCaffrey had 75 rushing yards and 41 receiving yards, he sparked the 49ers’ final touchdown drive with an 11-yard catch and a 12-yard, feet-churning run as linemen pushed him deeper into Cardinals’ territory with 1:55 to go.
Two snaps later, Purdy scrambled and celebrated with front-row fans, before the would-be 45-yard touchdown run was called back to the 10-yard line because of Kittle’s open-field holding penalty. “Kittle ruined that moment for him,” Shanahan said in deadpan fashion. (Kittle mused that refs are “entitled to make their own call.”)
Two snaps later, the 49ers correctly assumed the Cardinals would anticipate a run, and instead Purdy found Kittle open for the 20-yard score and game-winning points. Said Kittle: “I was so excited when we called that play. … I said, ‘I’m going to be uncovered here.’ ”
To extend the drama, Arizona’s Chad Ryland made a 49-yard goal with 34 seconds left, after the Purdy-to-Kittle encore.
Kittle, only eight months removed from a right Achilles tear, says he still does not feel 100% healthy but is improving weekly. He does “nothing crazy extra” to prepare other than seated calf raises pregame, and he noted he’s feeling fresh by playing less than he has in his 10-year career.
Sunday’s tense ending was the polar opposite of the 49ers’ happy-go-lucky scoring spree to start this NFC West matchup.
Evans pulled off a stunning trick play with a hook-and-lateral to Samuel for the 49ers’ first touchdown. Then Evans nonchalantly let Purdy’s second touchdown pass drop over his shoulder and into his lap in the end zone.
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The 49ers had a 14-0 lead, but by halftime they would no longer have Evans, whose rib and oblique injuries caused him to slowly stagger off the field and to a cart, for a ride into the locker room a minute before halftime.
Whereas Evans rode in the back of the cart, Williams hopped in the passenger seat and headed to the locker room with a nerve stinger, the result of a block on a McCaffrey 1-yard touchdown run for a 23-6 lead just after half. Williams was back on the sideline before the fourth quarter and didn’t seem in agony afterward; he did not return to action as Purdy’s blindside was covered by Vederian Lowe.
The 49ers’ offense is running so hot that it kept on trucking without Williams and Evans, but this was the first game that a fourth-quarter fury was required. After all, they did open with two blowout wins that cost them wide receivers De’Zhaun Stribling and Demarcus Robinson to ankle injuries.
How many injured stars can the 49ers afford to lose before October? The majority of Sunday’s defensive front featured replacements.
The Cardinals had almost the entire second half to erase a 17-point deficit, and the 49ers had more injuries and defensive lapses to overcome along the way.
Two Arizona touchdowns, on short passes by Brissett, cut the 49ers’ lead to 23-20 with 13 minutes remaining. Brissett’s 1-yard touchdown run capped a third touchdown drive and pulled them within 29-27.
Although the 49ers produced an opening-drive touchdown for the third straight game, nothing was like this: Purdy’s third-and-12 pass found Evans for a 6-yard gain, and Evans immediately lateraled to a hard-charging Samuel, who picked up a Luke Farrell block and buzzed 80 yards down the left sideline.
“I don’t think of that as a big trick play,” Shanahan said. “We’ve done it four times the last two years. We needed it: third-and-long. We hoped everyone would suck up to Mike and he’d toss to Deebo.”
Two plays earlier, Purdy opened with an incompletion to Evans, who got rocked across the middle by safety Andrew Wingard; officials did not grant Evans’ request for a defenseless-receiver penalty.
Evans got his own touchdown to open the second quarter, once Purdy’s 23-yarder crested Evans’ left shoulder and fell into the 13th-year veteran’s hands against cornerback Denzel Burke, for a 14-0 lead. That was Evans’ second touchdown in three games and 110th of his career, one shy of Tony Gonzalez for ninth-most in NFL history.
The Cardinals sandwiched 26- and 41-yard field goals around the series in which Evans got hurt. The 49ers extended their halftime lead to 17-6 as Eddy Piñeiro drove through a 57-yard, into-the-wind field goal as time expired. Piñeiro, however, missed two point-after kicks before making his final one.
Although cornerbacks Lenoir and Renardo Green were cleared after concussion evaluations, the 49ers also saw linebacker Dre Greenlaw (quadriceps) and Gracen Halton (cramps) injured along the way.
The 49ers’ makeshift defensive front relied on blitzes to force third-down stops on the Cardinals’ opening third possessions.
“Yeah, we have a lot of (new) guys out there and the D-line has lost six of 10 (player to injury), and they were having to go 81 plays,” Shanahan said. “I’m just happy how they grinded, kept Arizona out of the end zone in the first half and found a way to win at the end.”
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This story was originally published September 27, 2026 at 4:29 PM.