The San Francisco 49ers’ season didn’t just end in Seattle; it imploded in a 41-6 divisional-round rout. Kyle Shanahan’s team walked into Lumen Field hoping to quiet the Seahawks. Instead, Brock Purdy and Co. were completely overwhelmed, sending the Faithful into stunned silence.

That made the loss sting even more because nothing worked. The Niners had no answers in any phase. As a result, the season ended right there, far from the Bay. Now, with the league’s Gameday Accountability report dropping, the pain doubled as the NFL handed down punishment to Purdy’s teammates.

Specifically, the league fined cornerback Deommodore Lenoir $20,944, while linebacker Dee Winters was hit with a $5,907 fine.

During the third quarter, Lenoir and Jaxon Smith-Njigba exchanged words. Moments later, the San Francisco defender drove his helmet into the Seahawks receiver’s facemask, crossing a clear line. Surprisingly, no flag was thrown. At the 10:05 mark of the third quarter, officials missed it entirely, even though the broadcast cameras caught everything.

Still, the Seahawks did not lose sleep over it. Smith-Njigba brushed it off completely. During a recent appearance on The Reset with Gee Scott, the Seahawks star made it clear the moment barely registered.

“One, I got a helmet on,” he said. “Two, when you feel like you’re on another level, I’m not gonna let something not on my level distract me from what’s going on.”

That mindset says everything about him. For a franchise anchored in poise, that response fits perfectly. You need toughness to win in the Emerald City, but control matters just as much. While Lenoir’s infraction was a clear post-play act, his teammate Dee Winters was fined for an illegal tackle during a play that initially went unnoticed.

Dee Winters was also fined after the Seahawks’ loss

The fine on Dee Winters started with a play that barely turned heads in real time. At the 4:01 mark of the third quarter, the Niners’ linebacker shut down Rashid Shaheed on the left edge, cutting him down for a three-yard loss. At the moment, it looked clean. Officials saw no issue and threw no flag, and the play moved on.

However, that calm did not last. Once the league took a deeper look, the tone shifted quickly. After review, the NFL decided the hit crossed a line. What felt routine on the field became a teaching moment off it, and Winters found himself on the wrong side of a rulebook ruling.

According to the NFL rulebook, a hip-drop tackle is when a player “grabs the runner with one or both hands or wraps the runner with both arms” and then “unweights himself by swiveling and dropping his hips and/or lower body, landing on and/or trapping the runner’s leg(s) at or below the knee.”

Since the on-field officials missed the hip-drop tackle, a violation that now results in a 15-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness, the NFL Officiating Department stepped in post-game to issue the fine for unnecessary roughness.

Notably, this marked the first fine of Winters’ three-year career, making it a tough lesson at a brutal time.

Meanwhile, life moves on in the Emerald City. The Seahawks now turn the page and lock in for Sunday. They welcome the Rams to Lumen Field with a trip to the NFC championship on the line. With the fans ready and the stakes sky high, Seattle controls its own path forward.