This isn’t the end of the 49ers’ 2024 season, but you sure can see it from here.
There wasn’t anybody in the morose postgame locker room who could deny the cold reality after the 49ers’ befuddling 20-17 loss to the Seattle Seahawks at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday — and, pretty notably, there wasn’t anybody who really even tried to.
The 49ers are 5-5 and falling behind in the playoff race because their offense couldn’t run out the clock with a four-point lead on Sunday when they had a chance to. Their defense couldn’t stop the Seahawks and Geno Smith when they needed to. The 49ers couldn’t avoid blowing a fourth-quarter lead to a division rival for the third time this season. They couldn’t survive the absence of George Kittle for the game and Nick Bosa for much of the second half.
They couldn’t emerge from this season-long funk and turn into their better selves. Because maybe that’s not who they are — or who they are going to be this season.
“It’s not like us,” Fred Warner said. “But that’s just what we’ve shown this year, so I guess until we stop doing that, then that’s who we are.”
That’s about as stark as Warner has ever been, but it would be silly for even the most optimistic team leader to act unconcerned in this moment. The 49ers threw away games earlier this season with terrible special-teams play and overall sloppiness. They’ve lost games due to injuries, turnovers, and defensive slippage. They’ve tried to tell themselves that they’ve turned the corner with a win here and there. But it’s still happening.
This is a team that’s used to thundering through the second half of the season, racing up the standings, and into the playoffs. But it’s November and they’re losing ground. And especially with Bosa not sounding very optimistic about making it back from his second hip injury in two weeks in time for next Sunday’s game, there’s no evidence that they’re primed for a long hot streak.
But that’s exactly what they need as they currently sit one game behind Arizona in the NFC West and 2 games out of the final NFC wild-card berth — with back-to-back tough games at Green Bay and Buffalo next on the schedule.
“I think that’s our mindset, for sure — it’s to win every single game,” Brock Purdy said. “You’ve gotta do it one game at a time. Can’t look too far ahead. Up next is Green Bay. … We all have to lean in on that and not look up; we just have to look down and do our jobs, get better as a unit.”
Can this 49ers team go 7-0 down the back stretch to thunder into the postseason? Or play very well and finish 6-1? Or, at worst, hold their own by closing 5-2 to get to 10-7 and then pray for some tiebreaker magic (when they’re already in terrible tiebreaker shape)?
Nothing about this season seems to point to the affirmative, from the early suggestions of a Super Bowl hangover to the pre-season contract problems with Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams to the season-ending injuries to Javon Hargrave and Aiyuk to all the other injuries along the way. Nothing about this season seems to be working 100% right.
It’s not all a disaster — they’re 5-5, not 1-9. Jauan Jennings had another great game on Sunday. Purdy has been up and down, but he’s the least of their worries. Trent Williams gutted through this game on a bad ankle, but he was solid as usual. Bosa was great while he was on the field. The defense is young, but there’s talent there. They only folded at the very end. This isn’t a bad team. This has the makings of a very good team.
But nothing’s at full go. Everything’s a bit stymied.
“It’s kind of hard to think about the big picture right now,” Bosa said. “But we have a lot of games left. What we’ve gotta do is get in the dance. I definitely still have confidence.”
Of course, the 49ers were in the Super Bowl last season and made it to the last three NFC Championship Games. And now they essentially are playing the last seven games of the regular season for their playoff lives. These proud coaches and players are shocked that it’s come to this. They don’t want to say it in those words, but they’re dismayed to be in this spot.
The incensed look on Kyle Shanahan’s face and the solemn answers from his players after the game told us that everybody understands this.
“Obviously, we put our backs against the wall,” Williams said. “So we’ve gotta come out swinging.”
On Sunday, the 49ers couldn’t run the ball consistently — Christian McCaffrey ran it 19 times for 79 yards, with a long of only 11, and blamed himself for a few clunky runs. The 49ers also didn’t get any explosive passing plays — Purdy completed 21 of 28 attempts for only 157 yards, a meager 5.7-yard average per attempt, with a long of only 22 yards. And Shanahan repeated multiple times that crippling penalties killed off a couple of drives.
Somewhat amazingly, the 49ers didn’t have any major special-teams blunders this week (though Jordan Mason muffed a punt return that he ended up knocking out of bounds to retain possession). And after last week’s misadventures, Jake Moody made all of his kicks (1-for-1 on field-goal tries and 2-for-2 on extra-point attempts).
But the 49ers were not good enough to outlast a mediocre Seahawks team, which they beat 36-24 in Seattle last month. Yeah, the 49ers are pretty mediocre themselves. They just keep losing these games.
“It’s just infuriating, honestly,” Warner said.
They’re not the 2022 team that bounced back from a slow start by winning their last 10 regular-season games. They’re not the 2023 team that steadied itself after a three-game midseason losing streak to grab the NFC’s No. 1 seed. They’re not the team we’re used to seeing. They’re not the team they’re used to being. There are explanations for this. But there’s no denying it.
