Finding three standouts from Saturday night might be a challenging task, but we’re going to give it the old college try.
The San Francisco 49ers picked an unfortunate time to have their worst team performance of the season, dropping their Week 18 clash with the Seattle Seahawks by a score of 13-3, and quite frankly, they’re lucky it wasn’t worse than that.
After three straight games of scoring 35 points or more, the 49ers’ offense put up season lows in passing and rushing yards, resulting in their lowest point output since Kyle Shanahan’s first game as San Francisco’s head coach back in 2017. And while the defense’s 13 points allowed was the lowest total allowed in the last month, Seattle moved the ball at will and could have easily had at least 24 points if it weren’t for some ill-advised decisions and a pair of missed field goals.
Simply put, the 49ers were lucky to be in the game as long as they were on Saturday night.
But enough with the commentary, let’s trudge through it and find the three stars for the 49ers’ regular-season finale:
Third star: K Eddy Pineiro
When a player is 100 percent of the 49ers’ scoring, he’s almost guaranteed to earn a star, and that’s the case for Pineiro on Saturday.
And while this is three stars for Week 18, we’ll use this spot to recognize just how good a season Pineiro had for the 49ers. Pineiro was brought in after Jake Moody missed two of his three attempts against Seattle in Week 1.
Pineiro would repay the 49ers’ faith in him by missing fewer field goals (1) in 29 attempts than Moody missed in what turned out to be his final game as a 49er. And Pineiro’s lone miss was a 65-yard attempt that had the ball travelled one foot further, Pineiro would have finished with a perfect season.
Pineiro finished his season by nailing a 48-yard kick to put the 49ers back within one score of the Seahawks before the half, but it would prove to be the only offense for the 49ers in the loss.
Second star: DE Sam Okuayinonu
While the 49ers’ defense had its fair share of struggles, a couple of players made some critical plays throughout the game, and Okuayinonu had a couple of his own. Okuayinonu closed his 2025 season with a sack and a pair of tackles for loss with two quarterback hits and four solo tackles.
His first impact play of Saturday night came early in the second quarter with the 49ers trailing by seven. With Seattle in field goal range on a second-and-10, they would give the ball to Kenneth Walker with the run game torching the 49ers’ run defense. With the run heading towards Okuayinonu’s side, the defensive end would throw Seattle right tackle Abraham Lucas out of the way to stop Walker for a loss of four. Two plays later, Jason Myers would miss a 47-yard field goal to the right, keeping the 49ers within one score.
Okuayinoni wouldn’t have to wait too long for his next big play, closing out the first half with his one sack. With Seattle up seven with a minute left in the first half and a late chance to extend their lead, Okuayinonu would play a massive role in stalling Seattle’s drive out.
Sam Darnold would drop back on the opening play of the drive, but Okuayinonu would work his way through left tackle Josh Jones and sack Darnold for a loss of six yards. That loss drastically changed Seattle’s plans on the drive, as a gain of nine on the next play wouldn’t be enough, and the Seahawks would take their seven-point lead into the half.
There wasn’t much to brag about with the49ers’s defense on Saturday, but Okuayinonu made enough big plays to earn Saturday’s second star.
First star: CB Upton Stout
2025 was an up-and-down rookie season for Stout, but he closed it out with easily his best performance of the season.
Stout started his game with a couple of essential stops with Seattle inside the 10-yard line on their opening drive. Facing a third-and-goal, Seattle opted to run the ball to set up a fourth-down attempt. While Ji’Ayir Brown made the first contact, Stout came in to finish the tackle on Charbonnet to force the fourth down. And on the fourth down, Stout was targeted on a pass attempt to Cooper Kupp, and while the pass was off target, Stout was tight in coverage, and most importantly, he didn’t commit a penalty to end Seattle’s first drive.
Stout made possibly one of the plays of the game for the defense in the second quarter as well. Following Okuayinonu’s run stop of Walker, Seattle tried a swing pass to convert the third-and-long. Darnold got the ball to Walker in space with only Jake Bobo out in front to block. Only Stout was standing in the way to prevent a big play, and the rookie worked his way through Bobo’s block for a nice, physical tackle to prevent any more yardage.
Stout finished Saturday with six tackles and just two yards allowed on two receptions on three targets. A nice and physical game for Stout to finish his rookie campaign on.
Throughout the season, I will track the three stars of the season, tallying points for each star award using a complex scoring system: three points for being the first star, two for the second, and one for the third. Through Week 18, the standings are:
- RB Christian McCaffrey – 17 points
- LB Fred Warner – 11 points
- TE George Kittle – 11 points
- QB Brock Purdy – 11 points
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