49ers finish season with a victory

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO

With all the pressure off, the San Francisco 49ers decided to just have fun. Fired-up, fill-in coach Jim Tomsula had a lot to do with that.

The Niners wound up with the kind of performance in their season finale they expected all year. Instead of the playoffs, San Francisco enters an offseason of change. The franchise will soon hire a new general manager, and a coach, then search for a quarterback.

Alex Smith threw a 59-yard touchdown pass to Vernon Davis in what likely was the quarterback’s final hurrah with the 49ers, and San Francisco beat Arizona 38-7 on Sunday in a matchup for last place in the awful NFC West.

“We could let our hair down,” receiver Ted Ginn Jr. said. “Everybody played comfortably.”

Smith, the 2005 No. 1 overall draft pick who becomes a free agent, passed for 276 yards and two TDs and the Niners (6-10) made Tomsula a winner in what will probably be his only game coaching the team. Tomsula was promoted from his defensive line duties after Mike Singletary was fired last week.

Larry Fitzgerald had a 10-yard TD reception from John Skelton among his 11 catches for Arizona (5-11), which failed to win back-to-back games all year.

Brian Westbrook had a pair of 6-yard TD runs in the third quarter for San Francisco.

The game affected both teams’ top-10 picks in April’s draft — exact positioning still to be determined.

These teams went 1-2 in the division a year ago and had high hopes entering 2010, with the 49ers favored to win the West. Instead, they began 0-5 and couldn’t produce the franchise’s first winning season since its last trip to the postseason in 2002.

“Those guys compete and they play hard no matter what the situation is,” Fitzgerald said. “They had a tough week losing their head coach and those guys still were a resilient bunch of guys. We just have to find a way to beat these guys. They swept us the last two years and that doesn’t sit well.”

Davis finished the year with seven TD receptions, six fewer than a year ago when he tied Antonio Gates’ record by a tight end with 13. Tarell Brown added a late 62-yard interception return for a touchdown in San Francisco’s second-highest scoring output of the season.