Instant analysis of 49ers’ 42-38 win over Bears to keep alive bid for No. 1 seed

SANTA CLARA – One play into Sunday night’s showdown and the No. 1 seed looked like a lost cause.

That’s not how this 49ers season goes, however. Overcoming adversity is just what they do.

Brock Purdy shook off an opening-snap pick-six that put them in a 7-0 hole, the 49ers blew four subsequent leads, and they ultimately rallied in the final minutes for a 42-38 win over the NFC North-champion Chicago Bears at Levi’s Stadium.

Purdy found Jauan Jennings for a 38-yard touchdown reception with 2:15 to spare for the 49ers’ much-needed yet seemingly ludicrous seventh touchdown of the night.

The 49ers (12-4) are one win away from securing the NFC’s No. 1 seed and the NFC West crown, though that will entail knocking off current leader Seattle (12-3) next Saturday at Levi’s Stadium. (The 49ers would own the top tiebreaker over the Seahawks, by virtue of a Week 1 comeback victory in Seattle for the season sweep.)

The 49ers’ most chaotic victory of the season wasn’t secured until the final play, when the 49ers’ second-effort pass rush forced Bears quarterback Caleb Williams to throw an incompletion from the 2-yard line as time expired.

Purdy threw three touchdown passes and 303 yards, and he also ran for two scores to help offset his opening-throw pick-six en route to a sixth straight win.

Christian McCaffrey ran for 140 yards and a touchdown, and he added 41 receiving yards to pull him within 110 of hitting a 1,000-yard rushing and receiving milestone.

The Bears, for the first time since that pick-six, went ahead with 5:22 remaining on a 29-yard field goal from Cairo Santos. It was the game’s only field goal, and it came after the 49ers’ goal-line defense responded in the wake of a Tatum Bethune personal-foul penalty.

The 49ers had taken a 35-28 lead into the fourth quarter but surely knew that might not be safe against a Bears team with an NFL-record six comeback wins in the final two minutes of games this season.

Williams threw for 330 yards and two first-half touchdowns, but he came up two yards shy of another improbable win in his second season.

Erasing leads came easier for the Bears earlier in the night, and they erased the 49ers’ fourth lead when D’Andre Swift ran for a 22-yard touchdown to open that fourth quarter, after Williams converted a fourth-and-5 pass to end the third quarter.

It turns out T.J. Edwards merely ignited a scoring spree with his 34-yard interception return for a Bears’ touchdown on the stunning opening snap, in which Purdy’s pass to Jennings got deflected by cornerback Jaylon Johnson and snared by Edwards for the Bears’ NFL-leading 22nd interception.

Compounding that disastrous start: left tackle Trent Williams sustained a hamstring injury in pursuit of Edwards, and the 12-time Pro Bowler had to be replaced by Austen Pleasants on the 49ers’ next series.

The 49ers matched that Bears’ opening score with a nine-play, 65-yard touchdown drive, capped by Purdy’s 1-yard pass to a wide open Jake Tonges, who started in place of tight end George Kittle (pregame scratch because of Monday night’s ankle sprain in Indianapolis). Tonges kept alive that drive with an 18-yard, third-down conversion, then later he had an 8-yard catch that preceded a 25-yard, third-and-2 pass from Purdy to Demarcus Robinson at the 1.

Purdy put the 49ers up 14-7 on a 10-yard scramble for a touchdown, diving head-first across the goal line behind a Tonges’ block. Igniting that go-ahead drive was McCaffrey’s longest run of the season, a 41-yarder down the left sideline.

Three minutes still remained in the first quarter when Luther Burden III raced past Ji’Ayir Brown to catch Williams’ 35-yard strike and tie the score at 14.

McCaffrey quickly put the 49ers back ahead, going untouched on a 5-yard touchdown run for a 21-14 lead, following a 16-yard run by McCaffrey and a 13-yard catch by Ricky Pearsall, who aggravated a knee injury on a 30-yard reception to open that drive.

The Bears’ response: another touchdown bomb from Williams, this one spanning 36 yards to tight end Colston Loveland against linebacker Bethune at the goal line for a 21-21 tie.

Purdy’s second touchdown run, a 3-yard scamper, pushed the 49ers ahead 28-21 with 3:23 left in the first half. It was their ninth touchdown drive in 14 first-half possessions over the past three games.

At that halftime break, the 49ers had outgained the Bears 330 yards to 154, with McCaffrey at 121 rushing yards.

Williams pulled the Bears even again when he opened the second half with a touchdown drive, complete with a third-and-14 conversion for 19 yards, and then a 24-yard completion that led to Swift’s 2-yard touchdown run and 28-28 tie.

Purdy’s most theatrical touchdown came on their first series after halftime: he rolled left, sliced between two defenders, and tossed a 6-yard scoring strike to a flat-footed and wide open Kyle Juszczyk, whose emphatic spike underscored the 49ers’ efforts to retake the lead, 35-28, with 4:52 left in the third quarter.