SANTA CLARA, Calif. _ Only a 49ers season this maddening could make Sunday's victory so tough to secure, even after parlaying George Kittle's 210 receiving yards into a 20-0 halftime lead.
An eventual 20-14 win over the Denver Broncos may have hindered the 49ers' 2019 draft position, but it certainly provided a morale boost for a flailing franchise that had lost its past three and 10 of 12 before Sunday's stunner.
Nick Mullens snapped out of his three-game funk and did more than capitalizing on Kittle's hands. Mullens passed for 332 yards, his second-most in five starts and a throwing for 414 yards in a losing effort last Sunday in Seattle. He helped clinch the win with gutsy, third-down conversions to Dante Pettis (31 yards) and Trent Taylor (6 yards) in the final minutes.
All of Kittle's 210 yards and seven catches came in the first half, and he became the first 49ers tight end to eclipse the 1,000-yard mark in a season, doing so in flamboyant style on an 85-yard touchdown catch-and-run that gave the 49ers a 13-0 lead.
The Broncos (6-7) did not find a threatening rhythm until the second half, when they began pouncing on a 49ers defense that couldn't hold fourth-quarter leads in four losses earlier this season.
Case Keenum, after three consecutive incompletions from the 1, threw a fourth-down touchdown pass to DaeSean Hamilton with 3:53 remaining to pull within 20-14. That score overshadowed earlier fourth-quarter stops by Cassius Marsh and Marcell Harris on the Broncos' previous two possessions.
After next hosting the Seattle Seahawks and Chicago Bears, the 49ers finish the season _ their fifth straight out of the playoffs _ on Dec. 30 at the NFC West-champion Los Angeles Rams.
Before Sunday's national anthem, a moment of silence was held in the wake of Friday's death of Tony York, youngest son of owners John York and Denise DeBartolo York and brother of team CEO Jed York.
