SANTA CLARA — Johnathan Abram didn’t get the memo.
Don’t poke the bear. Especially when that bear is Deebo Samuel and his team’s season is on the line.
In the second quarter of Saturday’s Wild Card playoff matchup between the 49ers and their NFC West rival Seahawks, San Francisco had yet to find its spark. Abram, the Seahawks safety, ended up lighting the match that led to an explosion for the 49ers in their convincing 41-23 blowout.
Less than five minutes into the second half, the 49ers still trailed the Seahawks but were marching in Seattle territory. Brock Purdy dropped off a short pass to Deebo and bullied his way down to the 16-yard line for a 21-yard gain. As the play was wrapping up, Abram grabbed Deebo’s left ankle and gave it a twist in what looked like a dirty, extracurricular play. Samuel, of course, just missed three games after a brutal tackle injured his left ankle and knee in Week 14.
Oops.
The 49ers got fired up as both teams got in a scrum and exchanged words. The Niners responded by scoring 25 unanswered points to win their 11th straight game and advance to the next round.
“You can see the definition of our team of IGYB – I got your back.” Samuel said. “At the end of the day I feel like that turned up our team a notch. As you can see we just went out there and made plays.”
The Niners wrapped up that drive with a touchdown after Purdy punched it in from one yard out. Their next drive was all Deebo. On the second play of the series, he hauled in a short pass from Purdy and then rambled down the left sideline for a 74-yard score, aided by a huge downfield block from Brandon Aiyuk.
That’s what happens when you poke the bear.
“I didn’t like how that looked,” coach Kyle Shanahan said. “I thought it looked pretty bad, the intent of the play. I think that pissed a lot of people off. Think it pissed our team. I think you could kinda feel our team react to that after. I wish we were like that from the first play.”
The next San Francisco series, Robbie Gould knocked down a field goal to push the 49ers’ point total over 40 before the Seahawks scored a garbage time touchdown. By then it was too late. Abrams picked the wrong guy to piss off Saturday.
“I think anger kinda took over,” George Kittle said. “Why would you ever wanna piss off Deebo? If you’re gonna do that to him, you’re just gonna piss off Trent Williams, who is one of the scariest people on a football field. You’re gonna fire up our defense, you’re gonna get our whole team fired up. I don’t know what the point of that is. … They gave us another reason to flip the switch even higher.”
So, did the Niners defense get a jolt too? Sounds like it.
“It’s playoff football,” Nick Bosa said of Abrams’ play. “It’s our rival so I wouldn’t expect anything less but, yeah, don’t poke the bear.”
Samuel also had some more bruising catch-and-runs in the second half as he racked up six catches for a playoff career-best 133 receiving yards. In all, the 49ers totaled 505 yards. The offense is playing like a dominant force lately, averaging 38.3 points per game over the past four games.
Now the Niners can kick back their feet and watch the next two days of action closely. If the No. 3 seed Minnesota Vikings beat the No. 6 seed New York Giants on Sunday (1:30 p.m. PT), the Vikes will head to Santa Clara next week. If the Giants pull off the upset, they’ll head to Philadelphia for a matchup with the Eagles, which would leave the 49ers to face the winner of Monday’s Dallas Cowboys-Tampa Bay Buccaneers contest.
