49ers In Prime Position For Playoff Spot After Beating Falcons 31-13

SANTA CLARA (AP) — The lackluster archetypal 2 months of the play are a distant representation for the San Francisco 49ers. Heading down the stretch, the Niners person deed their stride and enactment themselves successful premier presumption for a playoff spot.

Jimmy Garoppolo threw for 235 yards and a touchdown, San Francisco ran for 3 much scores and the 49ers won for the 5th clip successful six games, beating the Atlanta Falcons 31-13 connected Sunday.

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“Guys were locked successful today,” Garoppolo said. “You felt it passim the week, too. It was a large game, NFC opponent, playoff representation and everything similar that. It’s December football. We knew what we were successful for.”

The Niners (8-6) scored touchdowns connected 4 consecutive drives to marque casual enactment of the Falcons (6-8) to stay successful wild-card presumption arsenic the sixth-place squad successful the NFC.

They’ve turned the play astir aft stumbling to a 3-5 commencement by cutting down connected turnovers, controlling the crippled connected the crushed and utilizing a relentless walk unreserved connected defense.

“I deliberation we’re peaking astatine a bully time,” fullback Kyle Juszczyk said. “We’re decidedly not playing the champion arsenic we can. There’s a batch of things that didn’t precisely spell our way, but we were capable to conflict backmost and not fto it faze america aboriginal on. I consciousness similar we’re playing bully shot close present and stacking immoderate weeks.”

Atlanta hasn’t been capable to bash the aforesaid and erstwhile again got outclassed by 1 of the contenders. The Falcons person been outscored by 23.8 points per crippled successful losing each 5 matchups against teams that presently person winning records.

The Falcons got stopped astatine the extremity enactment connected their archetypal possession of the crippled and mislaid a fumble connected a portion sack by Nick Bosa connected the opening thrust of the 2nd half. That fumble betterment by Fred Warner came 2 plays aft Samson Ebukam opened the fractional with a sack.

“That was huge,” Bosa said. “Simpson made a large play connected the play enactment and past I had a bully powerfulness rush. Fred and Sampson ran a bully crippled implicit determination to marque him flush retired of the pocket. I ran him down.”

That helped the Niners instrumentality power arsenic they took vantage of the bully tract presumption to thrust 38 yards to instrumentality a 24-10 pb connected Jeff Wilson Jr.’s 5-yard run.

The Falcons settled for a tract extremity successful the reddish portion connected their adjacent possession erstwhile unit by Arden Key forced Matt Ryan into an incomplete walk connected third-and-goal from the 4.

San Francisco responded with a 75-yard thrust capped by Garoppolo’s 4-yard TD walk to Jauan Jennings.

Juszczyk and and Deebo Samuel scored connected San Francisco’s different TD runs successful the archetypal half.

Ryan threw for 236 yards with a 20-yard TD to Russell Gage successful the archetypal half, but was nether relentless unit astir of the game.

The Falcons struggled adjacent the extremity line, moving 13 plays from the 10-yard enactment oregon person without scoring a TD, tied for the second-most plays that adjacent to the extremity portion without a touchdown since 1991. Atlanta was stopped connected 5 plays from the 1.

“We’ve got to beryllium better,” Ryan said. “In short-yardage situations, wherever you conscionable request a yard, we’ve got to find a mode to truly person those astatine a precocious level. Good shot teams bash that. And we weren’t bully capable astatine that today.”

SACK STREAK

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Bosa’s sack was his 15th of the play and gave him sacks successful six consecutive games, the longest for a 49ers subordinate since Aldon Smith did it successful 7 consecutive games successful 2012.

Bosa is 4 1/2 sacks shy of Smith’s franchise grounds 19 1/2 sacks that season.

RUNNING DEEBO

The 49ers took a 17-10 pb into the fractional aft Samuel took a handoff and scored connected a 10-yard tally with 33 seconds near successful the 2nd quarter.

Samuel has tally for a TD successful his past 5 games, giving him 7 connected the season. His streak is the 3rd longest for San Francisco since the merger, trailing lone Raheem Mostert (six successful 2019) and Derek Loville (six successful 1995).

SLOPPY START

The Niners got disconnected to a unsmooth commencement erstwhile JaMycal Hasty fumbled the opening footwear to springiness Atlanta the shot astatine the 12.

But the Falcons couldn’t capitalize aft getting a first-and-goal astatine the 1 with Cordarrelle Patterson getting stopped connected 2 carries and Ryan throwing a brace of incompletions.

After Atlanta got a tract extremity connected its 2nd drive, Hasty fumbled different kickoff, losing it retired of bounds astatine the 9.

KEY INJURIES

Falcons: WR Tajae Sharpe (foot) near successful the 2nd fractional and didn’t return.

49ers: S Talanoa Hufanga (knee) near successful the archetypal fractional and didn’t return. … Bosa near concisely with a caput injury, but was cleared to return.

UP NEXT

Falcons: Host Lions connected Sunday.

49ers: Visit Tennessee connected Thursday night.

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Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.