SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Brock Purdy and the San Francisco 49ers were on the brink, needing a spark to overcome a big deficit and avoid a third straight loss in the conference title game.
Brandon Aiyuk delivered with an improbable catch that helped save San Francisco’s season.
Purdy’s 51-yard pass that deflected off a defender’s facemask into Aiyuk’s hands helped the Niners rally from 17 points down at halftime to beat the Detroit Lions 34-31 on Sunday and reach the Super Bowl
The 49ers (14-5) scored 17 points in an eight-minute span of the third quarter to tie the NFC championship game and then pulled away in the fourth quarter to earn a rematch against Kansas City after losing to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl four years ago.
“No one was rah-rah,” Purdy said. “No one was freaking out. It’s football. There’s a lot of experienced guys on this team, veteran guys who have been in crazy situations. We were just like, ‘We have to do our job.’”
San Francisco mounted the fourth comeback ever from 17 points down or more in a conference title game thanks to some big plays by Purdy and bad mistakes from the Lions (14-6), including two failed fourth downs in field-goal range. Detroit fell short of reaching the first Super Bowl in franchise history.
“We’re not going out like this,” coach Kyle Shanahan said of the mindset at halftime. “Guys didn’t want today to be the last day. We put ourselves in a hole. They played like it in the second half and we were able to get the ball to bounce the right way and we made up for what we did in the first half.”
