GIANT DISGRACE
Time’s up for Eli, McAdoo and Reese after Big Blue falls to winless 49ers
SANTA CLARA » C.J. Beathard threw for 288 yards and two touchdowns and ran for a third score to lead the San Francisco 49ers to their first win of the season with a 31-21 victory over the reeling Giants on Sunday.
Beathard connected on an 83-yard TD to Marquise Goodwin and a 47-yarder to Garrett Celek in the second quarter as the 49ers (1-9) took advantage of another listless effort by the Giants (1-8) to win for the first time under coach Kyle Shanahan.
“It’s disappointing,” Giants quarterback Eli Manning said. “Obviously, we’re in this situation for a reason. We just got to keep working and compete every week.”
Beathard’s time as starting quarterback in San Francisco figures to be numbered after the team acquired Jimmy Garoppolo two weeks ago in trade from New England. Garoppolo has been learning the offense and could take over when the team returns from the bye in two weeks.
While the Niners could be making a quarterback change soon, this performance will only heighten the questions about whether the Giants will need to change coaches. Ben McAdoo has been under fire after a report this past week from ESPN that quoted an anonymous player as saying the players have given up on the season and don’t view McAdoo as a leader.
The Giants have not fired a coach during the season since 1976 when Bill Arnsparger was let go after a 0-7 start and replaced by John McVay, who had more success as an executive who helped build the 49ers dynasty in the 1980s.
“We got seven games left to play,” McAdoo said. “We got a lot of football left to play.”
“I have great respect for coach McAdoo and he’s done a good job getting us ready to play each week,” Manning said. “We just got to play better.”
This was a historically bad matchup, marking the first time in 33 years that two teams with only one combined win met this late in a season. Then the teams committed three penalties before the second offensive play of the game.
The Niners were the only team to pick up their play from there, using the two big TD passes from Beathard to take a halftime lead and then dominating the second half.
PLAYING WITH A LEAD
The Niners took a lead for the first time since Oct. 1 at Arizona when they got a field goal from Robbie Gould on the opening drive. The five games without holding a lead tied a franchise worst set in 1963. San Francisco also got its first first down while holding a lead of the season on a 40-yard pass from Beathard to Louis Murphy in the third quarter. That drive ended when Olivier Vernon had his first career INT when dropping into coverage on a screen.
GO-TO GUY
Giants rookie TE Evan Engram caught a TD pass for the fourth straight game as he has excelled after Odell Beckham Jr., Brandon Marshall and Dwayne Harris were all lost for the season. Engram has five TD catches, tying the Giants record for a rookie tight end set by Bob Tucker in 1970.
GO DEEP
The 49ers used the deep pass to great success with the 83-yarder to Goodwin the longest TD pass for San Francisco since Tim Rattay and Brandon Lloyd connected on an 89-yarder on Sept. 25, 2005, against Dallas.