The San Francisco 49ers are Super Bowl LVIII-bound to play the defending champions, the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Niners outscored the Detroit Lions by 20 points in the second half to deliver a 34-31 home win Sunday night in the NFC Conference Championship game to punch their ticket to the Super Bowl.
Playing at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, the Niners entered halftime trailing 24-7. However, the second half was a completely different story.
There, the 49ers began capitalizing on the Lions' mistakes. After first connecting on a field goal, the Niners took advantage of the Lions turning it over on downs by Brock Purdy finding Brandon Aiyuk for a short touchdown pass. After forcing a Lions' strip-fumble, the Niners once again cashed in with a touchdown — this one coming on a goal-line rush from Christian McCaffrey.
Those scores and their respective extra points knotted the game up at 24-24 entering the fourth quarter.
Feeling the momentum swing in their direction, the Niners tacked on another field goal to grab the lead before stopping the Lions on downs and capitalizing once again — this time with Elijah Mitchell punching in the TD rush.
The Lions' Jared Goff would connect with Jameson Williams to pull Detroit within three points with less than a minute left but it wouldn't get closer than that as the Niners' 34-31 score stood.
Purdy aired it out for 267 yards and a touchdown, while McCaffrey carried 20 times for 90 yards and two touchdowns to help lead the Niners to victory.