The 49ers’ superstars — Purdy, McCaffrey, Kittle — make the difference in Tampa

TAMPA, Fla. — It’d been 271 days since Christian McCaffrey last played in a football game, but he was back in a very familiar place Sunday: On the receiving end of what seemed to be an impossibly perfect Brock Purdy pass.

After the 49ers’ 23-20 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, McCaffrey — sandwiched between Purdy and George Kittle in the visitors’ locker room as he zipped up his bag — still couldn’t believe the precision that had been at play.

“That throw from Brock,” said McCaffrey, looking toward the ceiling as if the ball were about to drop from the heavens again, “was awesome.”

The 49ers, trailing 17-13 in the fourth quarter, had busted on a blocking assignment. allowing Tampa Bay defensive tackle William Gholston to barrel in, forcing Purdy to release the football immediately.

“He actually threw it so early that I didn’t think it was a good throw,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said.

But Purdy had recalculated the ball’s trajectory, opting for a high arc that might’ve brought down rain had there been more cloud cover on this sweltering Florida afternoon. The improvised rainbow gave McCaffrey time to run under the football for a 30-yard reception.

“That’s not easy, to understand where I’m at on the field and put that touch on it,” McCaffrey said.

Four plays later, Purdy, and Kittle — who played “Pirates of the Carribean” theme music at his locker after the game in honor of the opponent the 49ers had just vanquished — combined to execute what might’ve been an even more difficult connection.

Purdy escaped the pocket and, with 347-pound Tampa Bay defensive tackle Vita Vea bearing down on him, threw a precise strike to Kittle in the back of the end zone. The double-toe tap on Kittle’s sixth touchdown grab of the season was masterful, evocative of his clutch score against the Seattle Seahawks last month.

“My only responsibility [to begin] that play was to get covered by the safety so that Christian could score a touchdown,” said Kittle.

When the Buccaneers kept McCaffrey covered, Kittle’s role grew. Along with Purdy, he had to improvise to deliver the spectacular play that gave the 49ers the lead.

It’d still be a white-knuckle ride to the finish from that point onward. The Bucs fought to tie the game before the 49ers responded with a last-minute march to set up Jake Moody’s game-winning field goal at the gun. But Purdy’s strikes to McCaffrey and Kittle underscored the difference in this game: San Francisco packed star power that Tampa Bay simply couldn’t match on both the throwing and receiving ends.

Sure, Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield made his own heroic play in response, stiff-arming 49ers’ edge rusher Nick Bosa, defying a fourth-down sack and extending the game in the process. (Bosa said he was caught in between a rock and a hard place trying to avoid a horse-collar penalty.) But the Tampa Bay QB was without his top three receivers — Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, and Jalen McMillan — and Bucs wideouts managed only four catches for 28 yards on the afternoon.

Purdy, meanwhile, recovered from an off-kilter start to shred Tampa Bay’s defense with his teeming arsenal of weapons. He finished 25-of-36 for 353 yards. Purdy’s first touchdown, a 46-yard strike over the middle, was Ricky Pearsall’s first career score. It came just 71 days after the rookie had been shot in the chest during an attempted robbery in downtown San Francisco.

“Super proud,” 49ers left tackle Trent Williams, beaming, said of Pearsall. “Just seeing him run into that end zone, what a full-circle moment. He deserves it all. He’s busted his tail for this moment. Couldn’t be more proud of the kid.”

Over the afternoon, Purdy involved all of the 49ers’ receiving targets. McCaffrey, who caught six passes for 68 yards, opened more space for Pearsall, Kittle, and Deebo Samuel. Jauan Jennings, making his return after missing two games with a hip injury, rumbled his way to seven hugely important catches for 93 yards. His final reception and run set up Moody’s 44-yard kick to win the game.

That was Jennings’ first time playing in the critical “X” receiver position, which had been formerly occupied by Brandon Aiyuk, who’s out for the season with a torn ACL.

“He’ll be doing that the rest of the year,” Shanahan said of Jennings. “He did a hell of a job.”

The 49ers needed every drop of offensive production to make up for a special teams performance so putrid that it caused tempers to flare on the sideline. The 49ers muffed a punt and Moody, returning from a high ankle sprain that’d sidelined him for over a month, missed three field goals. Samuel shoved long snapper Taybor Pepper, also making contact with Moody in the process, after directing words at the kicker following his third miss.

“Jake was having a little rough patch there,” Pepper said in the locker room. “[I was] standing up for Jake because there was still time on the clock. The game wasn’t over and everybody knows what happened at the end.”

That ending provided at least a modicum of redemption for Moody, who sealed the nail-biting win that clearly shouldn’t have been that close. The 49ers out-gained Tampa Bay, 413 to 215. They held Mayfield to only 116 yards passing and the Bucs to only 3.7 yards per play. But despite all that, the 49ers still needed those seismic performances from Purdy and his weapons to win consecutive games for the first time this season.

“I was just glad they were ready to battle, because that was a battle,” Shanahan said. “It was going to be grimy. It was going to be sticky. We knew we were going to get their best shot.”

But when that Tampa Bay strike came, Purdy and the 49ers offense responded with its best work. The superstars delivered.

“We were able to finish as a team at the end,” Purdy said, “which is what matters in the NFL.”