The first quarter decided the game. San Francisco put up 13 points before Washington had a first down's worth of rhythm, and it was 20-3 at halftime. Christian McCaffrey scored twice on the ground, which gave the 49ers what Purdy's thinned receiver room couldn't. Nick Bosa sat, as the inactives list said he would, so the pass rush that would have chased Daniels out of the pocket wasn't there. It didn't matter much while Washington was 17 points down.
After that, San Francisco's offense stopped scoring. The 49ers managed a field goal in the third quarter and nothing in the fourth. Washington scored a touchdown in each of the last 2 quarters to make it a one-score game, which is a lot better than this team looked blowing a 14-point lead to the Giants. The final margin was 6, short of what the closing number asked of San Francisco.
The injury list got longer on both sidelines as the night went on. Washington's DT Javon Kinlaw left with a shoulder injury and didn't return, and Luke Gifford was questionable to return for San Francisco with a groin issue. Evans is the big one. He was the receiver the preview said this offense would lean on after his 7-catch, 113-yard day in Seattle. Without him, Samuel and Kirk, Purdy's second half reads less like a cold spell and more like a shortage of people to throw to. The Washington secondary everyone worried about had Nick Cross, Percy Butler and Tyler Owens all active, and it held San Francisco to 3 points over the final 30 minutes.
Washington is now 1-4-1 and has lost 3 straight, and it's hard to find a lot of comfort in a 6-point loss. The offense looked as if it couldn't get started until the game was nearly gone. The second half is the part worth keeping: on the road against the league's only unbeaten team, Washington kept scoring and the defense stopped the bleeding. San Francisco hosts Atlanta in Week 7 before the bye, and the bigger question there is who catches passes than how good the defense is.
For the Niners it's 6 straight wins, and this was the 2nd in a row decided by a single score after Seattle. They're winning the way the preview described: they jump out early and get enough from McCaffrey and the defense to cover for an offense that keeps losing pieces. That has worked 6 times. Whether it still works with the receiver room this empty is now Kyle Shanahan's problem for the rest of October.