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Purdy's near-perfect day fuels 49ers' 35-13 win over Dolphins

Brock Purdy completed 20 of 22 passes for 287 yards, two touchdowns and a rushing score as San Francisco beat Miami 35-13 and scored touchdowns on its first five drives.

Saratoga Newsroom

September 21, 20262 min read

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September 20, 2026

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Brock Purdy treated the home opener like a continuation of Melbourne, not a recovery from it.

He completed 20 of 22 passes for 287 yards and two touchdowns, added a 2-yard rushing score, and finished with a 149.1 passer rating as the San Francisco 49ers beat the Miami Dolphins 35-13 on Sunday, ESPN's box shows.

The 49ers scored touchdowns on their first five drives and opened the season with back-to-back wins of at least 20 points for the first time in franchise history, the Associated Press reported.

Purdy completed 18 straight passes at one point, per the AP. His touchdown throws were a 12-yarder to George Kittle and a 6-yarder to Kyle Juszczyk on the first two possessions of the third quarter. ESPN's box matches the 20-for-22, 287-yard, two-pass-TD, one-rush-TD line.

Five drives, five scores

Christian McCaffrey's pair of 1-yard rushing touchdowns bookended the first-half opener and a late third-quarter score, and Purdy's own 2-yard run made it 14-6 at the half. Miami managed field goals on early red-zone trips and never forced San Francisco into a long field-goal try.

Coach Kyle Shanahan told the AP he was proud of how the roster handled the return from Australia after five days off following the Week 1 win over the Rams.

"For me, every play, every drive mattered," Purdy said afterward, per the AP. "It wasn't like we went out there and just blew these guys out. It was a game." The completion percentage said otherwise on the official sheet: two incompletions all afternoon, zero interceptions, zero sacks, and 13.0 yards per attempt.

Supporting pieces on the same script

Kittle finished with four catches for 80 yards and the early third-quarter score. McCaffrey reached 100 career touchdowns in 114 games, the fourth-fastest pace in the Super Bowl era, the AP noted, and joined Marshall Faulk and Randy Moss as players with at least 50 touchdowns for two franchises.

Purdy's job was to keep the chains moving and take the looks Shanahan dialed up; the efficiency numbers show how often those looks broke past the sticks.

Mike Evans added three catches for 54 yards before leaving with a hip injury. Demarcus Robinson and James Thompson Jr. left with injuries Shanahan believed were high ankles and could cost them time, per the AP. None of that slowed Purdy while the lead was growing. Malik Willis' late 77-yard touchdown pass for Miami only trimmed a blowout.

San Francisco is 2-0. The 49ers' first five drives all ended in the end zone, a sequence that left Miami's Napa practice week looking irrelevant once Purdy started completing everything short of a perfect day.

Cardinals next at Levi's

San Francisco hosts the Arizona Cardinals next Sunday. A near-perfect home opener will not guarantee the same efficiency against a different secondary, but Purdy's 20-for-22 card set the standard for a 2-0 start that already includes a win on another continent.

Sources

ESPN

ESPN

CBS Sports

CBS Sports

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