Falcons' Kendal Daniels, a week after scary neck injury, recovers fumble late to help lift Atlanta past San Francisco

Kendal Daniels appears to be perfectly fine.

A week removed from a scary neck injury that forced him to be stretchered off the field , Daniels came up with a game-sealing fumble recovery Sunday afternoon to lift the Atlanta Falcons past the San Francisco 49ers .

The Falcons were up nine late at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, trying to fend off one last-ditch effort from the 49ers. With less than a minute left, San Francisco tight end George Kittle caught a wide-open pass and was breaking to the middle of the field, seemingly putting the 49ers into scoring position. But Jessie Bates III dove for Kittle's legs and managed to trip him up. As he was stumbling forward, Kittle lost the ball, allowing Daniels to fly in and land on it untouched.

That secured the 29-20 win for the Falcons, and handed the 49ers their first loss of the season.

Daniels ended up leading the Falcons with a career-high 11 total tackles Sunday, nine of which he did by himself. While the fumble recovery was the most important, he was a force for Atlanta's defense all afternoon. He even intercepted Brock Purdy late in the fourth quarter, which was one of four turnovers the Falcons forced Sunday.

Daniels, whom the Falcons took in the fourth round of the NFL Draft out of Oklahoma, is up to 40 total tackles this season.

Sunday's outing came on the heels of a scary injury in their Week 7 matchup with the Chicago Bears. Daniels came flying in to try and tackle Bears tight end Colston Loveland, and he remained down on the field for roughly 10 minutes before being carted off.

Days later, Daniels was back at practice and was cleared to return.

"I scared a lot of people," Daniels said, via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution . "It was a scary play. I'm blessed to come out how I did, and it was a bang-bang play, but I'm happy I'm here."

The Falcons (3-4) will take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2-5) next week in Florida.

And Daniels, now with his terrifying neck injury behind him, can keep pushing forward in what has been an already impressive rookie campaign.