Brock Purdy going against same defensive mind who caused his worst career game

Quarterback Brock Purdy and the San Francisco 49ers are going up against the Seattle Seahawks and their head coach Mike Macdonald in Week 6 on Thursday Night Football. As defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens last year, Macdonald embarrassed Purdy and the Niners.

On Thursday, Purdy and the 49ers have a chance for redemption.

Many fans will remember, try as they might to forget, last season's game against the Ravens on Christmas night. The Niners lost the game 33-19, and Purdy had the worst game of his career in the NFL. He threw four interceptions before he left the game with a stinger.

It was a brutal loss that may have cost Purdy his MVP hopes, but he and the team still bounced back and finished the regular season strong before coming up just short in the Super Bowl.

In Purdy's press conference ahead of Thursday night's game against Seattle, he confirmed the defensive scheme for the Seahawks is similar to what the team saw last year against Baltimore.

"The scheme is pretty similar and how they call the plays and stuff looks similar," Purdy told reporters. "Obviously the personnel and everything is different."

Purdy also confirmed he and the team have watched a lot of film from last year's debacle against the Ravens to try and learn from what went wrong and see how they can improve.

A key difference that Purdy touched on is the players the Niners are going up against this time around. It is clear that the talent on Seattle's defense is nowhere near the talent that was on Baltimore's team in 2023. The 49ers can feel fortunate they are not going up against Ravens defenders like Roquan Smith and Kyle Hamilton this time around.

Nonetheless, Macdonald's defensive scheme has caused the Niners problems in the past, so they need to remain vigilant to avoid another embarrassment.

One way they can do that is by returning to the run-first offense head coach Kyle Shanahan has relied upon so much in the past, complemented by play-action passes to catch the defense off guard.

The 49ers should not need a lot of extra motivation in this game against Seattle. They are off to a rocky start this season and are going up against a bitter rival.

But perhaps the chance to redeem themselves against Macdonald and his clever defensive scheme will provide that extra boost of motivation to put Purdy and the Niners over the top against Seattle.

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