Excuse me for being absent from blogging duties the past few days. Heading into the Thursday Night Football match-up between the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams, I was so nervous I couldn’t think straight, and since the Niners’ wild overtime victory, I’ve spent the past two days in the gloat zone. Just checking the archives now, I discovered that I haven’t written about football since preseason, so I’ll have to bring you up-to-date on the saga of Mac Jones in Frisco.
The 49ers opened the season with a 17-13 road victory over NFC West division rival Seattle. After getting the win, however, it was revealed that starting quarterback Brock Purdy had suffered two injuries — one to his left shoulder and a “turf toe” injury to his right foot. That meant that my boy Mac Jones, QB2 on the San Francisco roster since being acquired as a free agent in March, would start the next game for the Niners, on the road at New Orleans. And let me tell you a few things . . .
Forty-Niners fans are known as the “faithful” (their hashtag is #FTTB, “faithful to the Bay”) and their devotion is impressive. While you wouldn’t expect a left-wing cesspool of urban degeneracy like San Francisco to be much of a market for the wholesome All-American sport of football, the 49ers faithful are among the most loyal fans in the NFL, rivaling the infamous Buffalo “Bills Mafia” and even the legendary cheese heads in Green Bay. So despite them having pronouns in their bios and “Coexist” bumper stickers on their Volvos, San Francisco fans love their team, and thousands of them will travel to every away game, staging a “takeover” of the opponents’ stadium. Such was the case September 14 in New Orleans, when Mac Jones threw for 279 yards and three touchdowns to lead the 49ers to a 26-21 victory over the Saints.
From my perspective as a Mac Jones fan, the victory over New Orleans was perfect — my boy steps in as a substitute, has an outstanding game against a weak Saints squad, and then returns to his backup role. Except, as it turns out, “turf toe” can be a pretty serious injury. The silly-sounding name “turf toe” makes it seem like something trivial, and an injury to the big toe might not be much for a tackle, but for a quarterback, it matters a lot. Brock Purdy still wasn’t ready when the Niners returned for a home game September 21 against another division rival, the Arizona Cardinals, so Mac Jones got the start again. My boy was heroic in the clutch:
The San Francisco 49ers had lost another star to an injury, given up a fourth-quarter lead on a safety and were relying on a backup quarterback and a brand new kicker to maintain their perfect start to the season.
Mac Jones and Eddy Pineiro delivered.
Jones calmly moved San Francisco down the field in the closing minutes to set up Pineiro’s 35-yard field goal on the final play that gave the 49ers a 16-15 victory over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday.
“I failed a lot in that situation, to be honest, in the NFL,” said Jones, who was just 3-17 in his career in comeback chances before this win. “I just knew the guys had my back and like we talked about on the sidelines, go out there and rip it.”
Jones did just that and San Francisco (3-0) was able to overcome an injury to Nick Bosa and the absence of starting quarterback Brock Purdy to eke out the win. . . .
Jones took over at his 20 with 1:46 to play and completed five passes for 59 yards to get the Niners in position for the winning kick.
The stat line on Mac against Arizona wasn’t spectacular — 27-of-41 passing for 284 yards and a TD with one interception — but that drive at the end to set up the game-winning field goal was the kind of hero moment he hadn’t had very many of before, and to do it in front of the home-field crowd against a division rival? Nice.
At this point, Mac had accomplished what he needed to do this year: Prove he was still a quarterback who could win games. Under a two-year contract with the Niners, all my boy needed was to get some wins, put some good plays on video, and know that he’d get his shot to be the starter somewhere in 2027. Brock Purdy said he was ready to go the next week, when the Jacksonville Jaguars came to San Francisco, and I was happy to see my boy Mac return to holding a clipboard on the sidelines.
PLOT TWIST: The Jags won 26-20 and Purdy looked awful. San Francisco’s “franchise quarterback,” who just signed a contract worth upwards of $50 million a year, threw two interceptions and lost a fumble on a strip-sack. And, guess what? Purdy re-aggravated his “turf toe” injury in the process. That meant that Mac Jones would return to the field for the next game, which was only four days away, as the 49ers were set to play a Thursday night game on the road in Los Angeles against the hated division rival Rams on prime time national TV.
The stakes could not be higher: Facing off with the Rams, on the road, with first place in the NFC West on the line, an injury-riddled Niners squad takes on the defending division champions.
The oddsmakers had San Francisco heavy underdogs. But the faithful believe, see? They bought 61% of the tickets to the 49ers-Rams game, neutralizing LA’s home-field advantage.
And my boy Mac Jones? Nothing less than magnificent:
Everything seemed to indicate the San Francisco 49ers were in for a long night when they traveled south on a short week without Brock Purdy, Nick Bosa, George Kittle and their top three wide receivers to face the surging Los Angeles Rams.
The Niners had a long Thursday night, all right — but after nearly 67 minutes featuring innumerable twists and turns, they headed home with an improbable victory that reasserted their dominance in their biggest NFC West rivalry.
“We talked about how tough we had to be for four quarters,” quarterback Mac Jones said. “It came down to who was going to be the toughest team, and I think it was us.”
Eddy Piñeiro hit a 41-yard field goal in overtime before San Francisco stopped Kyren Williams on fourth down with 3:36 to play, and the short-handed 49ers hung on for a thrilling 26-23 victory.
Jones passed for 342 yards and two touchdowns while playing through a leg injury for the 49ers (4-1), who scored on their first two drives and led 20-7 late in the third quarter.
Los Angeles finally mounted a rally, but with help from several glaring Rams mistakes, the Niners hung on to win their first OT game since losing Super Bowl 58 in February 2024.
The frantic fourth quarter featured Piñeiro’s tiebreaking 59-yard field goal with 2:52 left, Williams’ subsequent goal-line fumble and Joshua Karty’s tying 48-yard field goal for the Rams (3-2) with 2 seconds to play.
“They were unbelievable,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said of his players. “We talked about how long this game was going to be, how focused we had to be, how competitive we had to be for the entire time. Started out great, but it’s a good team. They tightened it up. Got real tight, then lost a number of dudes. We had to overcome losing two D-linemen in that game, and the D-line is still stepping it up big. That was a huge character win.”
The Rams gave the ball to San Francisco to begin overtime, and Jones drove to set up Piñeiro’s fourth field goal with 5:51 left.
Los Angeles marched down the field, and facing fourth-and-1 at the San Francisco 11, coach Sean McVay elected to go for it — only to call a running play that he regretted almost immediately.
“I’m pretty sick right now,” McVay said. “I’m sick of the spot that I put our group in to end the game, but these are the tough beats that you’ve got to be able to learn from and move forward.”
Marques Sigle and Deommodore Lenoir got credit for smothering Williams well short of the first down.
“It didn’t look like they had anywhere to go,” Shanahan said. “Looked like a brick wall, which is similar to what we ran into all game, but it was awesome for us to get it done.”
Kendrick Bourne had career highs of 10 catches for 142 yards for San Francisco, while Jones played impressively through an apparent leg injury. Christian McCaffrey had 139 total yards for the 49ers, who snapped their three-game losing streak in this rivalry despite the injury absences of Purdy — who is “week to week” with his toe injury, Shanahan revealed — and the majority of their most famous players.
San Francisco then lost starting defensive linemen Kalia Davis and Yetur Gross-Matos to injuries during the game, but rookie backup lineman Alfred Collins made the biggest play of the night when he forced and recovered Williams’ fumble at the goal line with 1:05 left in regulation.
“It was a must-have-it play, because if I didn’t do that, they would have scored,” Collins said. “When I saw the ball, I cocked it back and hit it.”
Like that phrase “improbable victory.” Backup QB on a team without its top three wide receivers and all-pro tight end George Kittle, somehow guts out a win with a crew of rookies and second-teamers.
So when Sunday rolled around, it was the best kind of day — sitting on top of the division, watching everybody else lose. As weird as it seems — no Hollywood screenwriter could come up with a scenario this exciting — the San Francisco 49ers at 4-1 are now tied with the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles, the Detroit Lions and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the best record in the NFC. Next Sunday? They travel to Tampa Bay for a showdown with the Bucs, and chances are that Brock Purdy will still be recovering from his “turf toe,” which means that Mac Jones will be leading the Niners in a game with potential Super Bowl implications.
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