49ers get stuffed for Thanksgiving (w/video)

SANTA CLARA - In back-to-back weeks, the 49ers offense got away with lackluster performances against bad teams. The Seattle Seahawks might not be playing like champions this year, but they’re still a good team, and they made San Francisco pay dearly in a 19-3 beatdown on Thursday at Levi’s Stadium.

“We didn’t get it done,” Niners head coach Jim Harbaugh said afterward. “Seattle played much better team football than we did.”

The loss puts the 49ers in a precarious spot. With Detroit winning on Thanksgiving, San Francisco has the seventh-best record in the NFC - and that doesn’t count any teams from the NFC South, which will claim one playoff spot. So the 49ers effectively become the No. 8 seed in the conference; only six of those teams will play in the postseason.

Another way to put it: The team that has played in the past three NFC championship games will have to make up ground on two teams over the remaining four weeks, or watch the playoffs as spectators.

San Francisco’s offense never seemed to stand a chance against the Seahawks. The Niners went three-and-out on three possessions in the first half, and two drives in the game ended when Colin Kaepernick threw interceptions right into the arms of his nemesis, cornerback Richard Sherman. One of those came midway through the fourth quarter with the 49ers trailing by 16.

And, yeah, Harbaugh admitted those were throws that probably shouldn’t have left Kaepernick’s hand.

“We don’t look at interceptions as throws you should make,” Harbaugh said during a short, clipped postgame press conference.

Sherman nearly had a third pick in the second quarter but was unable to hold on.

The 49ers couldn’t run against Seattle’s active front seven and couldn’t get open against the visitors’ physical defensive backs. When they did, Kaepernick never found his comfort zone. He completed 16 of 29 passes for just 121 yards and the two picks, for a passer rating of 36.7. San Francisco’s longest play of the day was 16 yards.

“Football is about making plays,” left tackle Joe Staley said. “And the offense, we didn’t make plays.”

This has become a familiar refrain against the Seahawks. This marked the sixth consecutive time the 49ers have failed to score 20 points against their rivals, including a memorable 19-17 loss in last year’s conference title game at Seattle. That one ended when Sherman deflected a pass by Kaepernick into the arms of a trailing linebacker.

The Niners’ defense was solid Thursday, coming up with a couple of stands inside the 10-yard line, but was prone to giving up big plays on not-very-long passes. That included a play on which San Francisco’s Dontae Johnson barely missed a sack on a corner blitz and Russell Wilson found tight end Tony Moeaki for a 63-yard gain that fell a half-yard short of the end zone. It also included a wheel route by Seattle running back Robert Turbin that netted 34 yards. Both of those set up Seahawks field goals.

Really, neither offense could do a thing early. When the Seahawks finally broke through, it was set up by an interception, Sherman staring down Kaepernick and picking off a pass intended for Brandon Lloyd near midfield.

Even then, the Seahawks had to work, converting one third-and-7 via a defensive holding penalty on Johnson and one on a 24-yard pass from Wilson to Doug Baldwin on a crossing route. The touchdown came on another innocuous-looking pass when the 49ers left Turbin wide open in the left flat and Wilson found him for a 13-yard touchdown.

The second half was sluggish and mostly uneventful, and that suited the Seahawks just fine. They received the third-quarter kickoff and marched 65 yards in 11 plays to set up Steven Hauschka’s third field goal. The 49ers got the ball and went 59 yards in 12 plays, finishing with Phil Dawson’s 49-yard kick to cut the score to 16-3.

Those two drives ate up all but 1:06 of the third quarter. Even if the 49ers had kept moving the ball, they wouldn’t have enough time to even things up at that rate.

As it turned out, they had no points left in the tank. The Seahawks would add one more field goal to bring the score to 19-3, and the 49ers would lick their wounds and wonder about a season that has gotten away from them.

Even the fans who gave up Thanksgiving dinner to watch their favorite team ran out of patience at some point. Plenty of seats had gone empty by the fourth quarter, and the offense heard some boos.

“I sense the fans’ frustration,” Staley said. “I mean, we’re frustrated. They show up on Sundays and cheer for the team and we give our lives to the sport - all the hard work, all the sacrifice our families go through. And then to come out and play this way is disheartening.”

As are the 49ers’ playoff prospects.

You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com.