SANTA CLARA — The 49ers didn’t just beat the Dallas Cowboys Sunday night.
They broke them.
The Niners’ victory was so comprehensive, so physically and mentally dominant, so inevitable going into the final 20 minutes of the game, that the Cowboys decided they were done for the evening well before the final whistle blew.
And the 49ers didn’t take the hint. They were merciless in their finish.
As the Cowboys’ effort waned, particularly on defense, in the second half, San Francisco remained in sixth gear, even with its backups and third-string players in the game, scoring six touchdowns in total.
Sometimes in football, the final score isn’t indicative of the true nature of the contest.
There was no lie in the 49ers’ 42-10 win. Quarterback Brock Purdy threw for four touchdowns, George Kittle caught three, Christian McCaffrey and Kyle Juszczyk added two more and the 49ers’ defense created four turnovers (including three interceptions of Dak Prescott) and held Dallas to 197 total yards of offense.
With the possible exception of the 2019 NFC Championship Game, Sunday’s win was the best game the Niners have played under head coach Kyle Shanahan. Every bit of that 32-point differential was earned.
And whether consciously or not, the Niners made a statement with the victory: If you didn’t believe they were the NFL’s best team before, you better believe it now.
The Cowboys didn’t believe it going into the game. Look where that left them.
To call Sunday’s game a beatdown or blowout is to compare it to other, closer games. This was big brother vs. little brother.
No, this was an extermination.
Of the Cowboys’ Super Bowl hopes, that is.
This was billed as a showdown between two of the NFL’s elite few. All the evidence suggested such a game was imminent. The Cowboys, eyeing revenge for back-to-back playoff losses, believed this was an even matchup they could win — a game that would bolster their Super Bowl bonafides.
The Niners’ dizzying performance left the Cowboys stunned and questioning everything.
Prescott called the Niners’ win the “most humbling game I’ve ever been a part of.”
“We didn’t get any momentum,” Prescott said. “Ever… Obviously, they’re further ahead than us right now.”
There was a differing perspective from the Cowboys, of course. Said Dallas linebacker Micah Parsons:
“I don’t think [the Niners] are at a higher level than us. I think we’re the same caliber playoff team.”
“I feel like it was just a few plays away,” Parsons said.
If by a “few” you mean roughly three dozen, then sure, Micah.
You have to forgive Parsons for that quote, though — there’s little evidence the star pass rusher was part of Sunday’s game. He might have missed the Niners’ six touchdowns.
This kind of incongruity in thought — this kind of delusion, in the case of Parsons — will be insidious for the Cowboys. Mark my words: The effects of this loss will resonate for weeks, if not months in Dallas.
We saw it start to take effect before the game was over.
Then again, can you blame the Cowboys for packing it in after 40 minutes when the 49ers were better in literally every aspect of the game? Self-preservation has to kick in at some point.
I’ve personally seen one NFL team quit the way the Cowboys did Sunday. It was the 2017 New York Giants, a team that came to Santa Clara with the undeniable intent of getting head coach Ben McAdoo fired.
An 0-9 49ers team won that day, as the Giants’ defense took bizarre routes to ballcarriers, provided weak arm tackles on run plays, and generally embarrassed themselves for 60 minutes.
McAdoo was, indeed, fired not long after.
But while the Cowboys’ efforts on Sunday and the Giants’ efforts back then came across as awfully similar in practice, there was a key difference: intent.
The Cowboys were trying to win Sunday’s game. They talked up this matchup and the importance of it all week. Everyone who spoke in the Cowboys’ locker room after the game said they believed on the plane ride to San Jose they could win. It was loosely discussed in Texas as an NFC Championship preview.
Whereas the 2017 49ers merely took advantage of a situation against the Giants, the 2023 49ers beat the belief out of a team with top-five Super Bowl odds heading into the game.
“We didn’t see it coming,” Prescott said. “We put everything into this and got punched in the mouth.”
It’s early in the season, yes, but that cannot disqualify the Niners’ dazzling start. If the team we saw Sunday and the four games prior is the team that plays the remainder of the season, it’s difficult to imagine any team beating them, even the reigning NFC champion Eagles, who host the Niners on Dec. 3..
These Niners might not just be a good team — they might be historically great. What else can you believe if you believed, as I did, that the Cowboys were a worthy foil?
In the Cowboys’ locker room after the game, Prescott stuffed bags of ice into a backpack, looking around like a teen stealing from his mom’s purse. Once the bag was full, he directed a staffer to take it to the bus.
He didn’t want to go to his postgame press conference with evidence of how the 49ers’ defense — led by linebackers Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw — beat him up Sunday.
There’s no ice for mental wounds, though. And that’s what this buzzsaw of a Niners team is handing out.
