No matter what weapons Brock Purdy has at his disposal, make no mistake that the San Francisco 49ers still wield an above-average offensive blueprint.
It took San Francisco losing offensive stars Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel and Trent Samuels to injury in Week 6 for the Browns to escape with a two-point home win.
Cleveland’s league-leading defense managed to limit Brock Purdy to 125 passing yards, allowing 63.6 total air yards on completions, and that’s about what it’s going to take to slow down the 49ers.
The Vikings enter Monday night’s clash with a second-worst 25.3 pass completions executed by the opposition. They are just plain-bread mediocre in both offensive (15th) and defensive (15th) DVOA, while the Niners rank No. 1 overall.
Sure, they were able to cover the spread against Chicago last week without the key to their offense in Justin Jefferson. That was more in part due to the Bears’ incompetence and losing their quarterback, Justin Fields, than how Minnesota performed.
Kirk Cousins threw for 181 yards and T.J. Hockenson led the passing game with only 50 receiving yards against a bottom-three secondary. A more pressing issue is how fruitless the Vikings’ run game has been with Alexander Mattison as the feature back.
He leads a regime averaging 75 overall scrimmage yards that is also one of two teams yet to score a rushing touchdown.
This will be a cause for frustration against the Niners, who allow a stubborn 80.1 scrimmage yards.
Cousins will have to find ways to deliver to a Jefferson-less receiving corps against Nick Bosa and the Niners’ 26.4 pressure rate.
Samuel will not be back for San Francisco, but there is optimism around McCaffrey’s status. The NFL’s leading rusher (92.1 rushing yards per game) and has scored at least once in 15 consecutive games.
Either way, Kyle Shanahan has plenty of cards to lay on the table against a Vikings team that has become more and more exposed this season.
Expect them to angrily set their gold-mining season back on track Monday.
THE PLAY: 49ers -5 (-105, FanDuel)