The sudden relevance of Brock Purdy

Confetti from an NFL weekend

San Francisco 33, Miami 17

— Brock Purdy (pictured) may have been All Big 12 at Iowa State, set 32 school records and won 30 games, but then he became Mr. Irrelevant, the final player taken in the 2022 NFL draft. Now he has a new identity, the guarantor of the 49ers’ season. When Jimmy Garoppolo went out with a broken foot Sunday, Purdy went 25 for 37 for 210 yards and two scores as the 49ers (8-4) pulled away from the Dolphins. Jimmy G will not be back, so it’s up to Purdy to nail down the NFC West and extend San Francisco’s five game win streak.

— Purdy won’t have to score a lot of points to win. The league-leading San Francisco defense intercepted Tua Tagovailoa three times and gave Miami 33 yards in eight carries. Nick Bosa had three sacks, two tackles for loss and a fumble recovery.

— The 49ers hogged the ball for 40:34 and allowed Miami within the red zone only once. In fact, 49ers’ opponents have gotten inside the red zone only eight times in the past five games and scored three touchdowns.

Cincinnati 27, Kansas City 24

— Maybe Patrick Mahomes should call Jake from State Farm and get some Bengals insurance. Cincinnati (8-4) has beaten Kansas City three times in this calendar year, and Joe Burrow hit Chris Evans with an 8-yard fourth quarter touchdown to win this one.

— All the outcomes have been by three points, including a 27-24 win in last year’s AFC Championship Game. Burrow has completed 78 of 108 passes in the three games with eight touchdowns and one interception. Mahomes is 68 for 101 with six touchdowns and two interceptons, and in none of the games did he pass for 300 yards. The Bengals are the only time to beat a Mahomes-quarterbacked Kansas City team three consecutive times, and on Sunday they broke the Chiefs’ 14-game win streak in December games.

— Travis Kelce’s fumble set up Cincinnati’s winning touchdown, and the Chiefs slipped to 9-3. That’s still good enough to dominate the AFC West, but now Buffalo has the top seed, and the only bye, in the AFC playoff picture.

Philadelphia 35, Tennessee 10

— The Eagles moved to 10-1 by showing their extreme versatility. Jalen Hurts threw for 380 yards and three touchdowns, two going to former Titan A.J. Brown. Last week against the Packers the Eagles cranked up the bulldozer and ran for 366 yards.

— The Titans (6-6) can’t find a way to score unless Derrick Henry is running full throttle. Against the Eagles he carried 11 times for 30 yards, and his longest run was six yards. Last week, Cincinnati held Henry to 38 yards in 17 tries.

— It’s the fourth time Philadelphia has scored at least 35 points, and it has scored five touchowns in each of its past two games. It’s difficult not to look ahead to a possible NFC Championship game between the Eagles and 49ers, a classic encounter between the butterfly and the net.

Cleveland 27, Houston 14

— A 11-game suspension and a 700-day hiatus between appearances took its toll on DeShaun Watson. His 2022 debut featured a 53.4 quarterback rating and no completion over 27 yards, and he took a hearty booing from the Houston fans who used to cheer him into the playoffs.

— Somehow the Browns scored 27 points without an offensive touchdown. It took a 76-yard punt return by Donovan Peoples-Jones, a pick-6 by Tony Fields and a fumble return by Denzel Ward. The Browns are 5-7 but at least have Nick Chubb, who ground out 80 rushing yards in 17 carries.

— Meanwhile, the Texans (1-10-1) continue to march toward the first overall draft choice and a successor to Watson, perhaps Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud. Houston has been held under 20 points for six consecutive weeks, a period in which it has converted 12 third downs in 71 opportunities.

Las Vegas 27, L.A. Chargers 20

— It was the third consecutive win for the Raiders (5-7) and featured the same one-two punch as the others: Josh Jacobs and Davante Adams. Jacobs had a 20-yard TD run and 144 yards on 26 carries. Adams caught eight of Derek Carr’s passes for 177 yards and two scores. Add three sacks from the resurgent Chandler Jones, and that’s what Raider fans envisioned in September.

— Jacobs is the NFL’s leading rusher and has gone for 482 yards in 83 carries over the past three weeks. Adams, stolen from Green Bay in the off-season, has seven touchdowns in his past five games as he teams up with his old Fresno State quarterback. Historical note: USC beat Fresno State in the 2013 Las Vegas Bowl, 45-20, with Clay Hilton as the interim coach before Steve Sarkisian took over. Carr and Adams were at Fresno State then, and connected on a 24-yard touchdown but did no further damage.

— As for the 6-6 Chargers, also known as Next Year’s Contenders, they never sacked Carr and allowed Justin Herbert to bite the dust five times. They also scored one offensive touchdown, and their longest running play went eight yards.

Detroit 40, Jacksonville 14

— It takes very little to excite the typical Lions fan who, if he or she wasn’t around in 1957, has never seen them win a championship. Sunday’s win was their fourth in five games and boosted them to 5-7, officially in the “hope” stage of playoff contention,.

— Jared Goff, the quarterback exiled from the Rams, connected on 31 of 41 passes for 340 yards and twice hit Amon-Ra St. Brown for touchdowns. St. Brown caught 11 of 12 balls Goff threw to him and took them 114 yards, and Detroit, which never punted, converted eight of 12 third downs.

— It was the fourth time Detroit has scored 36 or more points. Goff has not thrown an interception since Nov. 6, against Green Bay. More significantly, first-round draft pick Jameson Williams of Alabama got to the field Sunday after tearing an ACL in the College Football Playoff title game 11 months ago.