What the 49ers said after beating the Cowboys again

The 49ers dominated the third quarter Sunday night against the Cowboys and won 30-24.

They outscored the Cowboys 21-0 in the third, then Dallas showed signs of life in the fourth quarter before the 49ers finally closed the door with a turnover on downs in the game’s final minutes.

They’re now tied with the Seahawks and Cardinals atop the NFC West at 4-4 as they enter their bye week.

Here’s what they said after the win:

Kyle Shanahan

On his halftime message:

Stop having penalties. There was no message, it was just we gotta stop hurting ourselves. We had seven and a half yards per play in the first half and had a bunch of penalties that really hurt us.

On the win:

You’re not exactly where you want to be, but going into this game, we knew this was a big one. We didn’t want to be 3-5 going into the bye week having your backs against the wall like that.

On Kittle:

Kittle’s the man, especially on his holiday, he usually does better. But there’s a couple things in the first half and just like Brock he missed a couple he would love to have back. He came back in the second half and just played as good as you can.

On the rookies:

When we went into this year, we thought it’d be real hard for a lot of the rookies to earn starting positions, just where our team was at, but we believed that they were going to give some really good depth, and you hope to have some good stuff and not have to get to that. But we haven’t in all areas and fortunately a lot of those guys are players. They showed it in preseason and when their number’s been called, they’ve all come in and done their job and they continue to get better.

On Guerendo’s slide:

Yeah, we told him on this one. But he listened at least. It’s hard to turn that down when you’re running in and I’m glad he did it for the second time.

On Samuel’s return from pneumonia:

When you hear that stuff at the beginning of the week, pneumonia and things like that, in my mind it’s kind of ruled out. But you know, when they started working him out on Tuesday and said he had a chance and that he got through practice to a degree on Thursday and by the time Saturday came, he said he was feeling great. We still rotated him a lot and stuff, but we want to get the ball in his hands.

Fred Warner

On the end of the game:

We made it a game when it didn’t need to be, especially defensively, freebies, or they didn’t have to earn it, you know — (CeeDee Lamb) wide open, their best player. Can’t let that happen. We put ourselves in that situation so we had to get ourselves out.

On the bye:

The bye will definitely help me tremendously. You know, every week banging it up and finding a way to recover good enough to play the next week, and that’s just how the NFL is.

On the rookies:

That’s a heck of a rookie class right there … I don’t think you can talk about it enough. It’s so hard to play as a rookie in the NFL and all those guys playing at such a high level right now. It’s been amazing to see, and they’ve all come in with the right mindset, following everybody’s lead. We’re going to need them in a big way in the second half of the season.

Nick Bosa

On the game:

We started hot and I think we played well as a defense. It’s kind of been the story this year, though, letting them back in the game. So that’s a big focus that we need to have because playing against good teams here, you got to put them away.

On Warner’s halftime message:

I don’t want to give it away but he had a great message for us in the locker room and we felt like the superior team and we just needed to kind of execute a little better.

On displaying his ‘Make America Great Again’ hat while teammates interviewed with NBC:

I’m not going to talk too much about it, but I think it’s an important time.

Brock Purdy

On Kittle’s big game:

Just doing his job, creating some separation. Man, you get the ball in their hands five, six yards and they make one guy miss, it could be a big gain and that’s what he did.

On his mindset out of halftime:

Keep it simple but also play aggressive and just try to do what coach called and hit guys when they were open and keep it simple, move the ball, not try to hurt ourselves. First half, man, that was the main thing. We had plenty of opportunities but we just kept hurting ourselves.

On the bye:

It’s a great week for all of us to just rest up and heal up and just be hard on ourselves on the film and where we can get better because the second half of the season is everything.

On his scrambling:

There’s teams that have a spy on me and stuff. I feel like Kansas City did that, honestly, and the Cowboys did it as well, so there’s ways that they can scheme that up but then I think it takes away another pass rusher, so I have a little bit more time.

George Kittle

On Guerendo:

I think he got more comfortable the more reps he got, each and every rep and he’s just gonna keep getting better with all the reps that he gets.

On turning around the season:

Small, consistent steps in the right direction lead to great results, and this is just one step.

On National Tight Ends Day:

We had four active tight ends for the first time this year, so I was really excited about that, getting Brayden Willis up, you know it’s a holiday, so you’re trying to celebrate all tight ends.

On his 500th catch with the 49ers, joining Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens, Roger Craig and Dwight Clark:

An honor. You know, thankful that I got to be a part of an organization with a very high standard of how they play football. Thankful that they’ve kept me around for a long time and just every single day striving to be better than I was the day before and continually prove that I need to be on the San Francisco 49ers roster. To be on a list with any of those names. Any list that you’re on with Jerry Rice is a good thing.