San Francisco (12-5 straight up, 11-6 against the spread) won a 23-19 decision at Philadelphia as a 5.5-point road underdog Sunday to send the defending Super Bowl champions into vacation. The 49ers hooked up money-line supporters with a payout in the +185 neighborhood, while the 42 combined points slithered ‘under’ the 44-point total.
That was the good news for Kyle Shanahan’s club. The bad news was that seven-time Pro-Bowl tight end George Kittle was lost to a season-ending Achilles tear that’ll likely keep him out of a good chunk of the 2026 campaign.
Before getting injured, Kittle had one reception for six yards on two targets. In 11 regular-season games in 2025, he had 57 catches for 628 yards and seven touchdowns.
The 32-year-old Kittle has played in 124 career regular-season games since San Francisco made him its fifth-round pick with the 146th overall selection in the 2017 NFL Draft. He has 595 career receptions for 8,008 yards and 52 TDs.
In 13 career postseason games, Kittle has 34 catches for 461 yards and two TDs.
The 49ers went into the fourth quarter trailing the Eagles by a 16-10 score. On the opening play of the final stanza, Shanahan dipped into his bag of trick plays to call a pass off a reverse.
It worked to perfection. San Francisco WR Jauan Jennings, who was a four-star dual-threat QB coming out of high school, took the reverse as he was moving to his right and threw a dime to RB Christian McCaffrey, who hauled in the 29-yard TD reception for a 17-16 lead.
After Philadelphia countered with a 33-yard field goal to take the lead back, the 49ers answered with a four-yard TD pass from QB Brock Purdy to McCaffrey with 2:54 remaining.
The defense did the rest with an assist from Philadelphia WR AJ Brown, who dropped a pass from QB Jalen Hurts that would’ve gone for a big gain.
San Francisco advances to play at Seattle in Divisional Round on Saturday. As of late Monday afternoon, most spots had the Seahawks listed as seven (at a -115 or -120 price) or 7.5-point home favorites with a total of 45.5. The 49ers were +280 on the money line.