Culture
A playoff comeback that Brock Purdy really needed
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — You want to know who held Brock Purdy and the San Francisco 49ers accountable Saturday, with the clock running out, the rain coming down, Deebo Samuel out injured and the Green Bay Packers just a play or two from a monumental playoff upset?
You want to know who assigned responsibility and demanded that the 49ers fight through their game-long struggles? Who laid out all the potential consequences? That would be Purdy and every other member of the 49ers, who got themselves into this spot with one of their most baffling performances of this season.
They got the ball back with 6:13 left in the game after a Packers field-goal miss. They 49ers trailed by four points. They needed a touchdown. And they knew this was probably their last realistic chance to figure out how to avoid a horrendous loss in this divisional-round playoff game. So once the offense got into the huddle, Trent Williams gave a mini-speech.
“I just told them, hey, man, with six minutes left, this might be the last time we get the ball. And if we don’t do something with it, this could be the last time we’re in this huddle together,” Williams recalled. “So whatever you’ve got, just bring it. Bring it the next play and then bring it the play after that and then let the rest take care of itself.”
They all felt it. The 49ers were at Levi’s Stadium, set up as NFC favorites to get to the Super Bowl, and they absolutely felt it. What happened next: Purdy broke out of his funk and started completing passes, Brandon Aiyuk made a huge diving catch on third down, Purdy scrambled inside the Packers’ 10-yard line and finally Christian McCaffrey bolted in for a 6-yard touchdown that put the 49ers ahead at last. Then Dre Greenlaw finished off the 49ers’ 24-21 victory by intercepting Jordan Love’s ill-advised across-his-body heave in the final minute.
But oh yeah, the 49ers felt it. And nobody felt it more than Purdy. Almost an hour after the game, you could tell they still felt it — all the adrenaline, all the disappointment over playing so haphazardly in such a big game, all the significance and all the relief. The 49ers saw their playoff lives flash before their eyes Saturday … and thanks to those last handful of plays, they’re still alive with a berth in the NFC Championship Game at Levi’s on Jan. 28, facing the winner of Sunday’s Lions-Buccaneers game.
Dre Greenlaw runs with the ball after intercepting a Green Bay pass in the fourth quarter to secure the 49ers’ victory. (Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)
They live. And they know a little more about themselves now than they did after all their easy victories this season. (But so do their opponents.)
“At a point, you’re down and you’ve gotta find a way,” Purdy said. “It’s the fourth quarter, it’s the NFL. Obviously, we’re in the postseason now. We were all, like, all right, this is it. This is our season. For us to capitalize on that was huge. For all of us.
“Obviously for myself as a quarterback, it’s good for confidence and all that. But we have too many good players on this team, so many players that are difference-makers. We’ve got a great defense. For us to not find a way, it’s not right. So for us to finally have a game like this and pull through it was huge for all of us.”
Nick Bosa flat-out said that the 49ers needed a game like this and noted that they lost all their close games this regular season and won all the blowouts. And more than anybody, Purdy needed something like this. Of course, the 49ers never want to see Purdy wobble for three-plus quarters the way he did Saturday. The 49ers never want to get outplayed like the way the Packers outplayed them for most of this game.
But the 49ers also needed to see Purdy rise up from a struggle and deliver. They needed him not to just be a great front-runner. They needed him to dig out from a hole and win this dang game, and he went 6-of-7 on that last drive, looking quite calm (“he was Brock, couldn’t tell anything,” Williams said of that moment) and very much like the guy who led the NFL in passer rating and broke the 49ers’ single-season record for passing yards this season.
So what in the world was happening in this game for Purdy before that? The rain, for sure, caused him some trouble, the same way the wet weather in Cleveland early this season seemed to bother him. At times Saturday, Purdy wiped his right hand even as he dropped back to pass.
“Obviously, I put on a glove for the first drive,” Purdy said. “It was coming down in sprinkles, so I took it off. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I was sort of fed up with the glove. … Yeah, there were times I dropped back when the ball was a little wet from the grass. Sort of affected some accuracy and stuff. But that’s football. I’ve gotta be better than that.”
GO DEEPER
49ers overcome Packers, rain and their own mistakes: ‘It was gut check for everybody’
Not an issue, though, if it’s dry next Sunday at Levi’s and of course not at all if the 49ers get to the Super Bowl at Las Vegas’ indoor Allegiant Stadium in February.
Purdy also said that the Packers’ defense did a good job cutting off his deep options and forcing him to go to his checkdowns. And then Purdy spent most of the game rushing those checkdowns, often for incompletions. Also, while the Packers registered only one sack in the game, the pass rush seemed to bother Purdy — altering his throwing lanes and making him move his feet as he threw, which led to a couple of wild passes that the Packers easily could’ve intercepted but dropped.
This might be a problematic issue for the 49ers in the next few weeks, since Purdy also looked quite uncomfortable against the Ravens on Christmas, and the Ravens very well could be the AFC’s representative in the Super Bowl. But Purdy sounded like he solved something in his head during that last drive; if they’re begging you to take the easy pass, and the easy pass can march you down the field, just take the easy pass. Don’t let earlier mistakes mess you up when it matters most.
“We had what we wanted right in front of us, so you have to clean the slate,” Purdy said. “You have to have a clean mind and not try to force anything. Take what the defense gives you. And find a way, man.”
On that last drive, Purdy completed the short passes that were there and then zipped a crucial 17-yard out route to Chris Conley. His only incompletion on the series came when George Kittle — who otherwise was the 49ers’ best offensive performer, chipping in a 32-yard TD in the second quarter and 81 receiving yards overall — dropped another short one, which Purdy followed up with the dart to Aiyuk on third down.
“The whole day was just a little off,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said. “But guys stuck with it. Even that second-and-6 right there at the end, getting that drop leads us to third-and-6, then BA made a helluva play to keep us on the field.”
Another potential cause for the 49ers’ bumpy offensive play: the two-week layoff, counting Week 18 when Purdy and many other frontliners sat out the meaningless loss to the Rams and last weekend’s bye.
“I don’t know, could’ve been that,” Shanahan said. “Could’ve been the rain, could be good defense. But those are stuff you’ve gotta talk about. We handled that as best we could.”
Purdy, who was 23-for-39 on the day for 252 yards and 1 TD, for a 86.7 passer rating, wasn’t the only struggling 49er in this game, of course. The defense suffered through a handful of slips and miscues against Love and his receivers and gave up a huge 53-yard run to Aaron Jones. The 49ers’ special teams got hit, too — the coverage unit gave up a 73-yard kickoff return to Keisean Nixon and Jake Moody had a 48-yard field-goal attempt deflected at the line.
But the defense turned in Greenlaw’s game-sealing interception, plus another one earlier, and stopped Green Bay in the red zone multiple times. And Moody made up for his earlier miss with a clutch 52-yarder early in the fourth quarter that brought the 49ers to within 21-17.
“By no means was it perfect,” Shanahan said. “I was very frustrated. But also extremely proud and also really pumped that we’re playing another week.”
Quite frankly, the 49ers played the kind of playoff game that usually gets a team eliminated. There would’ve been harsh criticism leveled throughout the NFL if the 49ers and Purdy had lost this game. And the 49ers and Purdy knew all that, as the clock ticked down and they got into that huddle. There was a season to save. And now there might be a couple more games left to play.
GO DEEPER
Dre Greenlaw wouldn’t go down, and neither did the 49ers thanks to him
(Top photo of Brock Purdy: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
new video loaded: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects
By Jennifer Harlan, Sadie Stein, Claire Hogan, Laura Salaberry and Edward Vega
December 18, 2025
“Window seat with garden view / A perfect nook to read a book / I’m lost in my Jane Austen…” sings Kristin Chenoweth in “The Girl in 14G” — what could be more ideal? Well, perhaps showing off your literary knowledge and getting a perfect score on this week’s super-size Book Review Quiz Bowl honoring the life, work and global influence of Jane Austen, who turns 250 today. In the 12 questions below, tap or click your answers to the questions. And no matter how you do, scroll on to the end, where you’ll find links to free e-book versions of her novels — and more.
On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.
Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”
With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”
How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.
By ‘A Lady’
Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)
Where the Magic Happened
Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.
An Iconic Accessory
Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.
Austen Onscreen
Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.
Jane Goes X-Rated
The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.
A Lady Unmasked
Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”
Wearable Tributes
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.
The Austen Literary Universe
On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)
A Botanical Homage
Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.
Aunt Jane
Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.
Cultural Currency
In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.
In the Trenches
During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”
Baby Janes
You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.
The Austen Industrial Complex
Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.
Around the Globe
Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.
Playable Persuasions
In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.
#SoJaneAusten
The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.
Bonnets Fit for a Bennett
For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.
Most Ardently, Jane
Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
Stage and Sensibility
Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.
Austen 101
Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”
W.W.J.D.
When facing problems — of etiquette, romance, domestic or professional turmoil — sometimes the only thing to do is ask: What would Jane do?
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