In the National Football League, you can get away with a lot.
You can get away with a defense that is content to bend until it is scraping the grass.
You can get away with clock management that would break a Madden video gamer’s brain.
And apparently, you can even get away with your franchise quarterback entering a fugue state and tossing three first-half interceptions, all while playing as if the game was on fast-forward.
You can get away with all of that — every last bit of it — and so much more, provided one crucial variable is met:
You are playing Bryce Young’s Carolina Panthers.
Because even in Brock Purdy’s worst outing since that Christmas night disaster against Baltimore back in 2023, he was still the best quarterback on the field on Monday night at Levi’s Stadium.
But Young won’t be playing in January.
And if Monday’s woeful Purdy performance proves to be anything but a one-night dalliance, neither will the 49ers.
Let’s call the 49ers’ 20-9 win what it was:
A gift. Perhaps even a grift.
Yes, the 49ers’ defense elevated its game, but the 5-foot-10 Young hardly sets a high bar.
And, absolutely, everyone else on the 49ers’ offense had a great game on Monday. Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, the offensive line — they were great. The defense? Outstanding.
But the Niners stole one on national television.
A heist in plain sight.
If the Niners had it their way, this game would not be remembered.
Because the legacy of this game — the thing that sticks in your craw — will not be all the good the Niners did, but rather the bad: Purdy’s woeful, indefensible performance.
There is only one way to wash the taste of this game out of everyone’s mouth: Wins. Lots of them.
And no more ugly ones, either.
Monday night was a litmus test for the 49ers. A victory against Carolina was presumed — it’s the baseline requirement for being a serious franchise. That made Monday a chance to flex, to create some narrative momentum.
Instead, the most important player on the field sowed some serious doubt towards the Niners’ prospects in the final six weeks (and beyond).
The first two picks? Inexcusable. Late. Underthrown. Those are passes that can be intercepted while trying something out in 7-on-7 drills in July. They cannot happen during a playoff push in November.
And the third pick? Sure, tip your cap to Panthers cornerback Jaycee Horn for a brilliant play. But that play was only possible because Purdy stared down his receiver, as if he were reading the fine print on a Monroney sticker during Toyotathon.
“Just had three throws you’d love to take back,” coach Kyle Shanahan said of Purdy’s interceptions. “All three, good decisions, just a hair late on them. And when you’re a hair late on stuff, you can’t throw behind them, and he threw it behind them, and all three guys made him pay.”
Yes, that’s how interceptions work.
Who cares if the process is good if the other team ends up with the ball?
The 49ers had to revert to basics (aka, stop calling cool stuff) on Monday because the quarterback who was supposed to elevate the offense — the guy who, just a week ago, did elevate the offense — became a liability.
Purdy is lucky that Ji’Ayir Brown decided to play safety like a linebacker and linebacker like a safety. He’s lucky his teammates were too talented to let the Niners lose to a junior varsity operation like Carolina.
But here is the reality: The great players around Purdy need to be luxuries, not necessities.
The era of the “game manager” is dead and buried. But we didn’t replace it with an era where swashbuckling carelessness is acceptable. The standard for quarterbacks right now is exceptionally high, but Purdy should meet it.
He didn’t come close on Monday.
The optimist — and I know you’re out there — will look at this game and scream about “grit.”
They’ll point to Jauan Jennings shrugging off defenders or the defense bowing up in the red zone and say, “That’s the story. They found a way.”
They will point to the playoff seeding and say, “We’re in.”
And while those things are factually accurate, they are spiritually hollow.
The realist knows that Monday needs to swiftly be proven to be a bizarre anomaly if San Francisco wants to accomplish anything of worth this season.
Because the Niners played with fire. They didn’t get burned because the Panthers didn’t have any matches.
You know who has matches?
Playoff teams. Three of which the Niners will see in the final three games of the regular season.
Even the Browns and Titans — the Niners’ next two opponents — are capable of striking a light.
Scores and records can lie. After all, the Niners won by 11 points Monday, and it felt like a loss.
The 49ers got away with one.
They used up their quota in the process.
Try that again, and the result will not be the same.
And that could mean this season is over before the “real” season — the playoffs — even start.