Brock Purdy threw three touchdown passes — two to Jauan Jennings — Christian McCaffrey rushed for 73 yards and a score and the San Francisco 49ers outlasted the Tennessee Titans 37-24 for a fourth straight win on Sunday afternoon in Santa Clara, Calif.
George Kittle had eight catches for 88 yards and a TD while Ricky Pearsall accumulated a game-high 96 receiving yards, helping Purdy, the final pick of the 2022 draft, outperform Cam Ward, this year’s No. 1 pick, in their first-ever head-to-head.
Purdy went 23-for-30 passing for 295 yards, while Ward was 18 of 29 for 170 yards and two touchdowns. Neither quarterback threw an interception.
Jennings’ second TD reception, a 13-yarder, and Kittle’s 1-yard scoring catch both came in the third period, as the 49ers (10-4) extended a seven-point halftime lead to 31-10.
The Titans (2-12) made a game of it in the fourth quarter, sandwiching an Eddy Pineiro 37-yard field goal for the 49ers with a 1-yard TD connection from Ward to Jeffery Simmons and a 6-yard scoring run by Tony Pollard.
Simmons, one of the game’s defensive standouts, lined up in the Tennessee backfield for his TD catch, the second of his career.
Pollard’s TD run got Tennessee within 34-24 with still 5:33 to play, but a third Pineiro field goal, this one from 40 yards away, extended the margin to 13 with 70 seconds remaining, after which the Titans couldn’t score again.
Pollard wound up as the game’s leading rusher with 104 yards on 14 carries.
The 49ers finished with a 430-306 advantage in total yards.
Offenses dominated the first half, during which the 49ers scored on all three of their possessions en route to taking a 17-10 lead.
Purdy connected with Jennings for the first time, a 4-yarder, in the first quarter, McCaffrey plunged in from 1 yard out early in the second and Pineiro drilled a 33-yard field goal 56 seconds before the break to account for San Francisco’s scoring in the first 30 minutes.
The Titans countered with a 25-yard field goal from Joey Slye in the first period and a 34-yard TD pass from Ward to Gunnar Helm midway through the second.
–Field Level Media
