Lucky for the 49ers, it turns out that the first half of their 2024 season was a pass/fail endeavor. And try as they might, they did not fail.
They frantically dog-paddled through the waves of injuries, suffered gut-wrenching last-minute losses, improvised wildly, committed far too many mistakes, and mostly just held off encroaching disaster for all of these eight weeks — and, quite appropriately, also throughout Sunday’s sloppy but stress-relieving 30-24 victory over the tumbling Dallas Cowboys at Levi’s Stadium.
Think that’s a cynical way to view the 49ers’ relative NFC positioning going into their bye week after crawling back to 4-4? Probably not. Everything the 49ers said and every look on their face told the same story late Sunday: Thank God that’s over.
Now it’s time to get some rest, actually see if they can start playing quality football, and make some noise in November, December, and maybe the playoffs.
“We have everything ahead of us,” Fred Warner said. “We can be whoever we want. We have everybody that we need in terms of players. Obviously we’re banged up, we’ll get healthy after the week, hopefully get some guys back.
“It’s about just getting better at this point. We can’t keep getting up for a game and then dropping one and all this trying to figure out how to win another one. Let’s just get better. That’s why those little errors at the end of the game were so frustrating. Because the good teams, they don’t make those.”
As Warner mentioned, the 49ers could’ve sailed into their bye week with a blowout, after taking a 27-10 lead into the fourth quarter, but the proud defense gave up two quick Cowboys’ touchdown drives, and it was near-panic time again.
Of course, the 49ers couldn’t win this the easy way. The first half of this season had to finish with a game on the precipice. (I’m calling this the first half even though technically, the 49ers have 53 percent of their regular season remaining. That’s the way the 49ers are looking at this, too.)
The 49ers’ defense got the stop by forcing four consecutive Dak Prescott incompletions when it was absolutely necessary. The 49ers won the game. Nobody associated with the team called this a great performance or a model for anything that they want to occur in the next few months.
But it was imperative. If the 49ers had lost this game — if they hadn’t put things together after a drowsy, penalty-filled first half; if they hadn’t scored 21 straight points in the third quarter; if they hadn’t sealed it off, at last — everything about their 2024 season would’ve started to crumble away.
“We felt like the superior team and we just needed to kinda execute better,” Nick Bosa said. “There was a couple things that we were messing up on. Just about executing longer and we should beat teams that we’re better than.”
(Bosa’s “MAGA” moment on the NBC postgame set is already having its own set of celebrations and repercussions, but I doubt it will have much effect on the locker room or franchise. His political opinions are no mystery in the building, and as one of the best players in the league and true leaders on the team, he won’t be scolded for expressing it. If fans either love or despise what he did by interrupting his teammates’ interviews to make this statement, that’s all fair. He did it on national TV. It was all about getting a reaction.)
The 49ers were better than the Rams in Week 3 and still lost. The 49ers were better than the Cardinals in Week 5. And still lost. If they had thrown away this game, too, we could’ve changed all those conclusions: Maybe the 49ers aren’t good enough to think they’re better than anybody.
On Sunday, the 49ers spent the first half committing penalties on big plays — they were called for six infractions for 49 yards, including a holding call that canceled Brock Purdy’s 66-yard TD pass to Deebo Samuel and another one that crossed out a big run.
Afterward, Shanahan semi-joked that he only had one message at halftime: “Stop making penalties.”
But the 49ers were gaining yards. They were making some plays. The defense, other than one long Dallas drive, was stopping the Cowboys. They just needed to stop screwing up.
“When that happens, it’s not like you come in frustrated [at halftime],” Trent Williams said. “Because it’s nothing they’re doing, it’s all us.”
Then the third quarter happened, when the 49ers picked up 10 first downs to the Cowboys’ zero. And then the 49ers survived the fourth quarter.
Now they’re in a tie for first in the NFC West alongside the Seahawks and Cardinals. And the 49ers should get Christian McCaffrey back at some point next month, which will put some oomph back into an offense that has missed him badly. They should also get Dre Greenlaw back eventually, and he might have a similar effect on a defense that at times this season has looked pretty slow. They got a very good game out of Purdy, bouncing back from his lousy outing against Kansas City last week. And, aside for a clunker here or there, there’s every reason to believe that he’ll be one of the best QBs in the league for the rest of the season and maybe for another 10 years or so.
They also remember that they’ve taken off in the second half in a bunch of recent seasons. The 49ers don’t want to count on that happening this season, but at .500, after gutting out this victory, they know it’s all out there for them.
“You always go into a season expecting to win them all,” Kyle Shanahan said. “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 a bye week, having your backs against the wall like that. Getting that win was huge. Being 4-4, not at all the record that we wanted when we set out, but when you look at our division and everything, feel [it’s] a good spot.”
The 49ers also have a 2024 draft class that looked good in training camp, already was producing in Week 1, and now is blossoming into one of the best and deepest rookie crops they’ve had in this era.
On Sunday, the star was Isaac Guerendo, who ran 14 times or 85 yards and a TD after stepping in for Jordan Mason, who hurt his shoulder again after only six carries. Of course, Dominick Puni has been a stalwart at right guard all season. Malik Mustapha is a starting safety, delivering hits all over the field. Renardo Green is the third cornerback. And Ricky Pearsall debuted last week and already looks like a veteran — on Sunday, he caught four passes on four targets for 38 yards and had a 39-yard carry.
“That’s a heckuva rookie class right there,” Warner said. “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 such a high level right now, it’s been amazing to see.”
The 49ers have absolutely needed all of these rookies to survive these eight games. And now they could use a trade or two by the Nov. 5 deadline. They sure could use McCaffrey and Greenlaw — and Jake Moody and Talanoa Hufanga. The 49ers are still in this thing, with reinforcements coming. It’s not the best situation for a team that expects to get to the Super Bowl (and win this time), but the 49ers truly know that it almost was over for them this season.
And it’s not over.