The 49ers took their time winning a game this season, but they certainly found a convincing way to put their first one on the board.
They scored the first points of the game, scored a pair of touchdowns in the second quarter to take their first halftime lead of the year and then put the 31-21 win away with 14 more points in the fourth quarter of the game. The win is the first of Kyle Shanahan’s career as a head coach and will make for a pleasant bye week in the Bay Area.
Pleasant will not be in the cards for the Giants, who arguably played worse on defense in this game than they did in their 51-17 loss to the Rams a week ago. Wherever you fall on that question, there’s no arguing that getting outscored 82-38 -- the final Giants points came with a minute left -- over two straight games does little to make the case that the Giants are still fighting for coach Ben McAdoo.
While Shanahan just got his first win, one has to wonder if McAdoo will get a chance for a second this season as things for the Giants keeps getting worse. There were many plays on Sunday that reflected poorly on the Giants, particularly on defense where players didn’t seem overly enthusiastic about tackling or covering 49ers players when they were streaking down the field.
The offense wasn’t quite as listless, but it wasn’t any more effective and right tackle Justin Pugh left again with a back injury to make the blocking in front of Eli Manning even less effective. The opposite was true for the Niners, who had starting tackles Joe Staley and Trent Brown back in front of C.J. Beathard.
The result was a much-better job of pass blocking that gave Beathard time to complete 19-of-25 passes for 288 yards and two touchdowns. Carlos Hyde and Matt Breida combined to run for 153 yards with Breida joining Beathard with touchdown runs in a strong performance by the 49ers offense.
Beathard’s performance will lead to discussion about how much longer he’ll keep the job with Jimmy Garoppolo waiting in the wings, which is a far better question to ponder than the ones the Giants will be considering after another lopsided loss.