PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – The 49ers danced around it a little bit, but you could tell they were motivated by a Steelers prediction before game last week. Brock Purdy was very emotional after success and Brandon Aiyuk ruled the air in a 30-7 win at Acrisure Stadium.
Steelers corner Patrick Peterson said in his ‘All Things Covered’ podcast last week that he was able to read keys from San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy and predicted he would get an interception. Not only did he not get an interception, but he was in coverage in both of Aiyuk’s touchdowns and several of his game-high eight catches, on eight targets for 129 yards.
Asked if it was sweet to get two touchdowns against him.
“Yeah, I’ve been talking to him for a little bit now,” Aiyuk said. “We’ve had a couple encounters. It’s always fun to go against him.”
“Honestly, at first, no,” Purdy said of if it meant more beating Peterson. “I wasn’t thinking about any of that. BA was open, did a great job on the route. Got him the ball, scored a touchdown. Then the second touchdown on the right side, the deep ball, was that on Patrick?”
After the smile cleared his face.
“That felt good. It was good, man. He’s a competitor. I have nothing but respect for Patrick Peterson and anything he does.”
“Aiyuk did an awesome job beating his man,” said San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan. “Deebo was number one in the route, we were expecting a lot of people to go with him, leaving Aiyuk alone. Aiyuk did what we thought he would do. Good route, good throw, great protection.”
“Any time you throw it eight times, all eight of them are completions, that means you’re doing some really good stuff.”
Peterson said after the game he was able to read keys off Purdy and had the opportunity to get two interceptions, but just didn’t grab it in. He said credit to the Niners, that they just weren’t in good enough position to make plays.
Purdy finished 19 of 29 for 220 yards with the couple of touchdowns and no interceptions. He also ran for 20 yards including converting a first down where he looked at the Steelers sideline and signaled first down.
“I thought Brock had a good game,” Shanahan said. “Made some big plays. Got some explosives there in some tight windows. We had some issues in protection. Not just issues, we knew that going in. I thought Brock had a hell of a game.”
“We got a lot of respect for that team just watching how they were at the end of last year, watching them all season, the pre-season, knowing Mike (Tomlin), how he has the team. They didn’t make plays today, but that team’s going to be there at the end.”