Celebratory cigars, dancing… and plenty of Super Bowl talk: DailyMail.com joins San Francisco 49ers in their locker room for wild celebrations – as star QB Brock Purdy hails Brandon Aiyuk’s ‘insane’ catch that inspired win over the Lions
The San Francisco 49ers went wild in their locker room on Sunday night as they celebrated winning the NFC Championship and reaching the Super Bowl.
The 49ers pulled off one of the greatest postseason comebacks in NFL history by erasing a 24-7 halftime deficit and defeating the Detroit Lions 31-34 in a euphoric Levi’s Stadium.
Christian McCaffrey scored two touchdowns and Brandon Aiyuk got one of his own moments after the wide receiver completed a remarkable catch that turned the game on its head.
Brock Purdy’s 51-yard pass was deflected off a defender’s facemask into Aiyuk’s hands and was the catalyst for two third-quarter touchdowns.
After winning the NFC Trophy on the field, 49ers quarterback Purdy was greeted on the field by his parents and fiancée Jenna Brandt.
Brandon Aiyuk and Kyle Juszczyk shared a handshake as they celebrated the 49ers’ win
Christian McCaffrey shows off his NFC Champions t-shirt as he prepares for the Super Bowl
Brock Purdy kisses fiancée Jenna Brandt on the court after inspiring the 49ers’ comeback
After hugging his mother and father, Purdy kissed Brandt and hugged her as they shared a loving moment on the field.
His 49ers teammates and their families returned to the locker room to celebrate together, smoking cigars and dancing to music in ecstatic scenes.
Footage captured by DailyMail.com shows an ecstatic Aiyuk and fullback Kyle Juszczyk performing a synchronized handshake.
McCaffrey, meanwhile, showed off his NFC Champions t-shirt as he celebrated with George Kittle in the next locker.
49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan promised a night of celebration and admitted that his preparations for the Super Bowl and the Kansas City Chiefs would be put on hold for the night.
Asked for his thoughts on a Super Bowl against the Chiefs, he said, “None. I’m happy we’re going there and happy for the Chiefs too.
“I’m probably going to have a lot of fun tonight, with my family and everything.
“I’m going to come in tomorrow in a little bit of slow motion and figure out all the tickets for the Super Bowl, and the traveling and all that. That takes a lot of time for the players and their families.
“The coaches are going to try out Kansas City while they do all that, probably give the guys a couple days off and then we’ll continue with our game plan and practice on Wednesday or Thursday.”
Brandon Aiyuk made an “insane” catch that completely changed the course of the game
The 49ers scored 17 points in an eight-minute span of the third quarter to tie the NFC championship game, then pulled away in the fourth quarter to earn a rematch against Kansas City after losing to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl.
“No one was rah-rah,” Purdy said. ‘No one panicked. It’s football. There are a lot of experienced guys on this team, experienced guys who have been in crazy situations. We were like, “We have to do our job.”
Speaking about Aiyuk’s unlikely catch, Purdy added: ‘Yeah, I mean, obviously having such an explosive play at the time was huge. We needed to get onto the field quite quickly. We were still behind, I think, by two touchdowns.
“I definitely saw the flag go up. Then I heard the whole stadium erupt and I see BA (Aiyuk) curling up around the ball. Oh my god, he caught that.
‘Afterwards we’re all jogging. I’m like, dang. We’re all trying to figure out if he scored or not, got hit. What I saw him catch, I thought that was crazy.”
San Francisco made its fourth-ever comeback from trailing by 17 points or more in a conference title game, thanks to some big plays by Purdy and bad mistakes by the Lions, including two failed fourth downs from field goal range. Detroit failed to reach the first Super Bowl in franchise history.
“We’re not going out like that,” Shanahan said of the mentality at halftime.
“Guys didn’t want today to be the last day. We’ve put ourselves in a hole. They played like that in the second half and we were able to bounce the ball the right way and we made up for what we did in the first half.”
Kyle Shanahan admitted he’ll probably be in “slow motion” on Monday after a night of partying
Purdy admitted that “no one panicked” when San Francisco trailed by 17 points at halftime
After being asked if he could lead a comeback, Purdy has now done it twice in as many weeks. He sparked a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter to beat Green Bay last week and then made an even bigger comeback against the Lions.
He finished with 267 yards passing and a touchdown, along with 48 yards rushing thanks to a pair of 21-yard scrambles. Now the final pick of the 2022 draft starts in the Super Bowl against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.
“All he’s done since he’s been here is play at an elite level,” McCaffrey said.
‘Everything starts with him. We’re lucky he’s our quarterback. It picks up a lot of heat for no reason.”
McCaffrey had two touchdown runs and little-used backup Elijah Mitchell scored on a 3-yard run to make it 34-24 with 3:02 to play as the Niners got over the hump of the conference title game after losses the past two seasons.
“There’s been unfinished business for a while, man. Our team has been prepared for this for a long time,” Shanahan said.
“It’s taken a long year to get to this point, and we did it today. It was hard at first, but the character we have on our team, the type of guys we have, we can’t wait to get to Vegas, man.”