Brandon Ayuk wishes he could get a minute back in the 49ers’ 41-23 playoff win over the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday.
The wide receiver nearly completed the day with four passes from rookie quarterback Brock Purdy, but the ball slipped through Ayuk’s fingers in the end zone late in the fourth quarter.
After the game, Ayuk vowed to make up for the drop and bemoaned the waste of an incredible QB play.
“He did a great job,” Ayuk said of Purdy after the win. “I owe him one…
“I don’t know what it is about the end zone over there, but I have to find out.”
Purdy credited Ayuk for even being open in the first place.
“I was excited that, ‘OK, we’ve got trouble,’ and he kept it alive,” Purdy said. “He saw that I was fighting. I went left, came back right. And then he ran left and went all the way to the right and I was thrilled that he kept it alive and I was happy. I said. , that was good. Then again, she’s obviously so hard on herself.
“He’s like, ‘Man, I had to catch it.’ It hit my hands,” or whatever, but it’s okay, man. I love the boy. He works hard. He blocked for Deebo. [Samuel] on that long touch. You just see BA giving everything for this team and if something like this happens, it’s good. We’ll learn from it and get better.”
As Purdy noted, Ayuk played a key role in Samuel’s dagger TD run, blocking his teammate for a 74-yard score.
Both Purdy and linebacker Fred Warner applauded Ayuk not only for his receiving ability, but also for taking on other roles on the field.
“Brandon doesn’t get the accolades, he probably doesn’t get talked about a lot, but when I saw him close down the field for DeBeau, when DeBeau took that route and made the touchdown, people don’t do that,” Warner said. “The receivers don’t do it, it’s big time. That’s a huge play by him in that moment that people probably don’t talk about much.
“But the receivers that do that and then are able to get guys off the ice and do all the things that people really notice, that’s why I know he’s going to be a big player in this league for a long time because he does everything : the details needed to play at a high level.”
CONTACT: How the 49ers rallied behind Deebo with an ‘IGYB’ chant to defeat the Hawks
Ayuk finished the game with three receptions for 73 yards, on the heels of the first 1,000-yard season of his NFL career.
And while his contributions both with and without the ball are vital to the 49ers’ success, the wide receiver will have a chance to use his Purdy “IOU” in the NFC divisional round next weekend.
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