The San Francisco 49ers recently enjoyed a week off from football. They will now travel to the warm beaches of Tampa Bay to conduct business.
The 49ers will face the Buccaneers in the regular season for the third consecutive year. The original edition was Brock Purdy’s coming out celebration. San Francisco defeated Tom Brady 35-7 in that game, and the legend of Purdy was created.
Last year’s game was less spectacular, but it served as a full circle moment for the Niners’ quarterback, who defeated the Bucs once more. Purdy threw three touchdown passes in the 27-14 victory, and the defense limited the Bucs to 66 rushing yards.
Purdy and company will look to win a third straight on Sunday against Tampa. For once this year, they have the rest advantage. While they were on their bye week, the Bucs were in Kansas City taking the Chiefs to overtime on Monday Night Football.
The NFC West is completely up for grabs so stealing a game from a group of pirates is of the utmost importance. Here are three big things I’m watching for in Week 10.
THE RETURN of MCCAFFREY
The 49ers were relatively quiet at the NFL Trade Deadline this past week as compared to previous years under John Lynch. Maybe that’s because the addition of McCaffrey is the best get in the NFL in November.
The 49ers will officially activated CMC from injured reserve on Saturday and he is officially listed as questionable, but all signs point to him making his season debut in Tampa.
The reigning Offensive Player of the Year has been nursing a bilateral Achilles tendonitis injury since Training Camp. Jordan Mason and rookie Isaac Guerendo have held the backfield down nicely in his absence, but this offense is about to get a major jolt with their best player returning. The entire team is excited to get him back.
“It’s great. That’s 2-3 like [Michael] Jordan,” Fred Warner said. “He’s the man. Reigning Offensive Player of the Year. One of the best players and people I’ve been around.
The biggest improvement that will come from CMC’s return is in the red zone. The 49ers have a 48.57 percentage rating of touchdowns inside the 20, ranked 28th in the NFL. CMC supplied this 49ers offense with 21 all-purpose touchdowns in 2023.
NICE and RELAXED
Kyle Shanahan teams have a history of dominating after some rest. In their last five seasons, the 49ers are 36-13 following the bye week. This season started slower than this team would have liked. They lost ugly games to the Vikings, Rams, Cardinals, and Chiefs.
Warner has been in this situation before with San Francisco. He knows the team is capable of a big run.
“I’d hope that we’d win more before the bye as well,” he said.
“For some reason, we like to make it hard on ourselves, you know. There’s something about playing desperate that makes you play a little better, I guess.”
The schedule isn’t easy the rest of the way. Six of their eight remaining games are against teams that are .500 or better. They will have three more divisional games to try and separate themselves from the rest of the West. Hopefully they got their vacations out of the way, because this team is hoping not to take another trip for Leisure until mid-February.
CURSES
It’s only fitting to bring up a curse when you travel to the land of pirates and sunken booty. The Niners have felt the “Madden Curse” which applies to Christian McCaffrey gracing the cover of Madden 25 the video game.
The curse refers to multiple Madden cover athletes either getting injured, having down years, or in Barry Sanders case, retiring unexpectedly.
While San Francisco fans are hopeful they can put that myth to bed, the Tom Brady curse might be very real. As the Bay Area News Group’s Cam Inman pointed out on social media, the 49ers are 0-2 when the former quarterback is on the broadcast this season.
Brady was in the booth for the losses to the Cardinals and the Chiefs. Is the “Brady Curse” real? He will call this game in a stadium where he won a Super Bowl with the Buccaneers and is revered by fans.
