Steve Young was not impressed by what he saw from the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday in their blowout loss to the 49ers.
The legendary former San Francisco quarterback told KNBR's Tom Tolbert and Adam Copeland on Wednesday that he watched the 49ers' 42-19 beatdown of the Eagles and was left underwhelmed by the reigning NFC champions.
"Toward the end of the third quarter, I thought, 'What pretenders these guys were,' " Young said. "Last year, that defense was smothering. It's not. They've lost people at linebacker. You could just see they didn't have the pursuit, they didn't have -- they don't have it. I don't know if they can get it back. I know they were tired, too. ...
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"[The 49ers are] really good. I get that, too. But it just felt like a pretender situation."
The Week 13 matchup between the 49ers and Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field pitted the NFC's top two seeds against each other as San Francisco sought retribution for its conference title loss to Philadelphia last season.
After plenty of smack talk in the months that followed that 49ers loss, Sunday's rematch was set to be an intense affair. Instead, the Eagles fell flat. And while Young is right -- Philadelphia was missing some players and playing on little rest -- the Hall of Famer didn't see an Eagles team that deserves to be in the top-of-the-league conversation.
San Francisco 49ers
"You're talking about top of the league," Young said of his reasoning. "You're talking about the three or four teams that can go the distance ... at home, in those clutch, big moments. Those big games that are going to define a season. On Sunday, they were pretenders."
San Francisco talked the talk and walked the walk Sunday, proving last season's NFC Championship Game might have ended a lot differently had Brock Purdy been healthy for all four quarters.
And the Eagles, well... just ask Young.