49ers outlast Cowboys, head to NFC title game vs. Eagles

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Brock Purdy rolled to his left and saw his first few options covered. At the last second, George Kittle broke free running deep, Purdy threw across his body and Kittle made a juggling catch that sparked San Francisco’s only touchdown drive.

That one big play proved to be enough to send the 49ers to their second straight NFC Championship Game, thanks to a suffocating defensive performance.

Christian McCaffrey capped that drive with a tiebreaking 2-yard run and the defense buckled down from there, sealing a 19-12 victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday.

“Man, we’re just excited that we won,” said Purdy, the 49ers’ unbeaten rookie quarterback. “Everyone did their part. It’s playoff football, it’s never easy, but we’re moving on.”

The 49ers used back-to-back long scoring drives in the second half to wear down the Cowboys and win their 12th straight game. San Francisco will play the Eagles in the NFC Championship Game on Sunday in Philadelphia after losing to the Rams in that round a year ago.

“That felt like legit playoff football,” the 49ers’ Nick Bosa said. “That’s a really good team.”

Purdy improved to 7-0 as a starter since replacing an injured Jimmy Garoppolo early in Week 13. He went 18-for-28 for 215 yards with no turnovers against the Cowboys, joining Joe Flacco (2008) and Mark Sanchez (2009) as the only rookie QBs to win two playoff starts. “I’m not shocked anymore,” McCaffrey said. “It’s just who he is now.”

The key play came late in the third quarter in a 9-9 game.

Purdy — the last player chosen in the 2022 NFL Draft — ran a bootleg that Dallas covered perfectly. But he waited long enough for Kittle to improvise and turn upfield, and he delivered a strike.

“We needed something,” Purdy said. “We needed a spark to get the ball rolling.”

Kittle bobbled the ball a few times before finally corralling it for a 30-yard gain.

“I was like, you know what, how can I make this as dramatic as possible?” he said of his acrobatic catch.

He added: “I’m not even in the read, so I just kind of saw a space and he hadn’t thrown it yet, so I was just going up the field. He gave me a catchable ball and I was just trying to be dramatic. Just for TV.”

McCaffrey’s TD run ended a 91-yard drive that gave the 49ers a 16-9 lead. Robbie Gould’s fourth field goal later capped a nearly eight-minute drive and made it 19-12.

The Cowboys haven’t made it as far as the conference championship game since winning the Super Bowl after the 1995 season, losing seven times in the divisional round and five times in the wild-card round. Only five other teams haven’t gotten to a conference title game since then.

Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott threw two interceptions and Brett Maher missed his fifth extra point of the postseason when his attempt was blocked. He later kicked two field goals.

“Just disappointment,” Prescott said. “Defense gave us an opportunity to win this game. They played hard against a really, really good offense, a really good team. For us to only put up the points that we did, that’s unacceptable. It starts with me. I’ve got to be better. There’s no other way to sugarcoat it.”