After the game, Thomas Brown did not sugarcoat what happened in his first game as Bears interim head coach.
“I’ll always be straightforward, honest and open about things that transpired,” Brown said. “We’ve got to do a better job of putting [in] a better game plan on both sides of the ball so we execute better. Obviously [I will] continue to challenge our guys to be at their best. Also encourage those guys and also demand that we still stay unified.”
Williams completed 17 of 23 passes for 134 yards and a 116.9 passer rating before being replaced by Tyson Bagent with 1:59 remaining. The rookie quarterback extended his streak without throwing an interception to 255 pass attempts, the most in history by a Bears quarterback and an NFL rookie.
The 49ers offense was led by tight end George Kittle, who had six receptions for 151 yards. Jauan Jennings caught seven passes for 90 yards and two TDs.
The 49ers opened the game with a 5-play, 70-yard drive capped by Purdy’s 7-yard touchdown pass to Jennings, giving San Francisco a 7-0 lead. Purdy completed 4 of 4 passes for 70 yards on the 5-play, 70-yard drive.
The 49ers increased their lead to 14-0 on Isaac Guerendo’s 1-yard touchdown run with 1:39 left in the first quarter. Guerendo, a rookie fourth-round pick, made his first NFL start Sunday, after Christian McCaffrey and Jordan Mason sustained season-ending injuries last Sunday night in a loss to the Bills.
San Francisco extended its lead to 21-0 on Purdy’s 16-yard TD pass to Jennings midway through the second quarter and made it 24-0 on Jake Moody’s 23-yard field goal with 1:50 left in the first half.
“It’s a grown man’s business,” Brown said. “There is no lay down or quit in our football team, which I do love. But we’ve got to do a better job of trying to find ways of starting the games faster, particularly on the offensive side of the ball.”
“It’s not something that you want to do because that puts you behind in games,” Williams said. “When you’re behind in games, which we’ve been in a couple of these past games, you’ve got to come back and it’s a taller task … If you can get out and jump on people and these teams and impose your will, that’s obviously what you want to do early in games and we haven’t been doing that.”
After the Bears closed the gap to 24-6, the 49ers widened the margin to 31-6 on Guerendo’s 4-yard TD run on the first play of the fourth quarter.
After Odunze’s second TD, San Francisco increased its lead to 38-13 on running back Patrick Taylor Jr.’s 3-yard TD run with 5:15 to play.
With the loss, the Bears fell to 4-9. Their next game will be played a week from Monday night against the Vikings in Minneapolis.
