Brock Purdy leads 49ers past Seahawks in 32-29 win

SEATTLE – An NFC West prize fight broke out Sunday, complete with touchdowns, turnovers, taunting, tie scores and tense trading of leads.

Once this Week 5 doozy ended, the San Francisco 49ers’ undefeated record ratched up to 5-0 via a 32-29 triumph over the defending Super Bowl-champion Seattle Seahawks.

It took a midfield stand, of all strange things, to finish off a thrilling chapter of this rivalry. The Seahawks (3-2) saw their last-ditch drive end once a last-minute replay review upheld a ruling that Cooper Kupp came up a yard shy of a first down on a fourth-and-10 catch.

The 49ers got their winning points via Eddy Piñeiro’s 43-yard field goal, after he waited out the two-minute warning. Thin on receivers with Deebo Samuel out with a hamstring injury, they got in that go-ahead position thanks mostly to Christian McCaffrey, with an assist to his understudy, Kaelon Black.

Despite surrendering 29 points, the 49ers’ defense had its moments, from forcing four turnovers and five sacks to overcoming Dre Greenlaw’s ejection.

But with 7 minutes to go, the game was tied at 29 when Jason Myers made his fifth field goal of the day, a 40-yarder, that followed Keion White’s third-down sack of Sam Darnold.

The 49ers wrestled back the lead with 11 minutes to spare, once Brock Purdy completed a go-ahead touchdown pass to Brandin Cooks, followed by Purdy finding Mike Evans for a 2-point conversion grab and 29-26 lead.

The 49ers, after playing their first road game since the season-opening win over the Los Angeles Rams in Australia, will next play their first prime-time game next Monday night in hosting the Washington Commanders, who are 1-3-1 after tying the New York Giants 27-27 Sunday.

The 49ers owned a 21-13 halftime lead after their most chaotic first half since possibly a 2019 thriller in New Orleans.

The second half started in stunning fashion, too, as Renardo Green notched his second interception of the game off Darnold. That turnover, unlike those in the first half, yielded neither a touchdown nor any points, as Piñeiro missed a 52-yard field goal attempt wide left.

The 49ers’ lead got trimmed to 21-16 when Myers made his third of three field-goal attempts, this one from 43 midway through the third quarter.

49ers turnover No. 2 happened when Purdy got intercepted for the first time since the season opener’s first half in Australia, it came on a third-down pass toward Jacob Cowing, and that Nehemiah Pritchett pick would set up a go-ahead, 18-yard touchdown catch-and-run by the Seahawks’ Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who juked Fred Warner and Malik Mustapha in the open field to give Seattle a 23-21 lead 5:52 remaining.

Samuel coughed up the ball in turnover No. 3 on a third-quarter stumble toward the left sideline, after being tripped up by Drake Thomas; Samuel injured his right leg or hamstring en route to his first lost fumble since 2024. The Seahawks converted it into Myers’ fourth field goal of the game, a 48-yarder for a 26-21 lead 3:02 until the fourth quarter.

All three 49ers touchdowns in the first half came after Seahawks’ turnovers, and the most stunning came when rookie defensive tackle Gracen Halton forced a George Holani fumble at the goal line and Halton pounced on the loose ball to celebrate his first career touchdown.

Halton disengaged from center Jalen Sundell and Halton’s right hand swiped the ball free. Seattle got pinned down there after a Corliss Waitman punt was downed at the 4 by Ashtyn Davis, but only after Siran Neal’s touchback-saving tip from the 1-yard line.

Down 10-7, Warner took matters into his own hands, or specifically his right hand, which punched the ball from Emmanuel Wilson’s grasp and resulted in a fumble that Mustapha recovered at the Seattle 11-yard line. McCaffrey scored a go-ahead touchdown run on the next snap, zipping past left-side blocks from Connor Colby, Trent Williams and Evans.

But with that 14-10 lead in hand, things got out of hand with Greenlaw’s sideline shenanigans. He first delivered a shoulder-to-shoulder, late-hit on a Darnold scramble, and as Darnold careened into the bench, Greenlaw got swarmed by Seahawks and head-butted a helmet-less Ernest Jones Jr. to merit a disqualification.

Sacks by Halton and Osa Odighizuwa stalled that Seahawks’ drive and Myers’ 50-yard field goal cut the 49ers’ lead to 14-13 with 1:56 remaining.

Converting takeaways into touchdowns was the first-half theme when it came to scoring.

The Seahawks’ first turnover came when Green intercepted Darnold’s third-down pass on their initial possession. That set up Purdy’s 2-yard touchdown pass to Evans, who had a third-down conversion catch the previous play.

The Seahawks’ answered once Cowing opted against a fair catch and muffed a punt at the 35. The ball went through Cowing’s hands a split second before he got drilled by Pritchett. Former 49ers tight end Eric Saubert emerged from a scrum with the ball, and the Seahawks scored the equalizer six snaps later on a 2-yard touchdown run by Wilson.

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