Jimmy Garoppolo

It finally happened. The 49ers won in Seattle for the first time since 2011, and did so in a fashion that couldn’t have been more heart stopping.

The final game of the NFL season lived up to its billing.

We now know how Sunday’s prime-time matchup between the 49ers and Seahawks will affect playoff seeding in the NFC no matter the result.

After converting an improbable third and 16 just three plays prior, the 49ers did it a second time, on a 46-yard bomb from Jimmy Garoppolo to Emmanuel Sanders with 42 seconds left.

But once again, it was the San Francisco offense, a wild Garoppolo throw and Robbie Gould game-winning chip shot that was required to win a game that the 49ers seemed to always be losing.

It’s not all that easy to beat the New Orleans Saints, let alone in the SuperDome.

Have you taken a deep breath? It might be worth doing so. That was the type of game that comes once a season.

If we told you before the season that the 49ers would find themselves at 10-2 twelve games into the season, the assumption would be that Jimmy Garoppolo had made the leap from potentially great to one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.

Much like the 49ers’ only loss of the season against the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday will be remembered for missed opportunities and moments of questionable clock management.

It is not often that Aaron Rodgers is shut down by a defense. And when I say “shut down,” I mean constricted to the point that he is deprived of any opportunity to breathe life into a hapless offense.