Purdy states 49ers play best football with backs against wall

Purdy states 49ers play best football with backs against wall originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

For the second consecutive season, the 49ers used their bye week to recoup after a difficult and frustrating stretch of games.

San Francisco limped into its Week 9 bye in 2022 having lost two of three games with an underwhelming 4-4 record. Fast forward to this season and the 49ers' Week 9 bye followed a troublesome three-game losing streak after five consecutive wins to open the season.

The 49ers (5-3) will face off against the Jacksonville Jaguars (6-2) on Sunday at EverBank Stadium as they look to get back on track after the much-needed week off.

In speaking to reporters after practice on Thursday, 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy was asked if he and the team continue to emphasize the importance of a week-by-week mindset with each matchup acting as a new one-game season.

"Yeah, 100 percent. That's how it is," Purdy said. "And honestly, I feel like that was the case last year when we came off the bye. We were hungry, it was almost like we were playing desperate every single week to win every single game every Sunday. We just looked at it one game at a time and we're going to fight and claw and scratch one game at a time and it all fell into the place it needed to. So that's our mindset."

Purdy believes the 49ers perform their best under pressure, as evidenced by the 9-0 run the team went on after the bye week last season.

"Yeah, I think so," Purdy said. "Whenever our backs are against the wall I feel like we play some really good football. We're a talented team and once we're hungry and set our goals for something and we want it and we need it, I think we can do a lot."

The 49ers of course rode their impressive win streak into the playoffs, where they won two additional games against the Seattle Seahawks and Dallas Cowboys before losing to the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship Game.

San Francisco is more than capable of replicating that same second-half success again this season, but hopefully for the 49ers, it doesn't end in the same eventual heartbreak.

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