SANTA CLARA — Nick Bosa had labored to the finish line of last week’s victory against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The 49ers’ star edge rusher wasn’t back to full health entering their gut-wrenching 20-17 loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, but he planned to fight through his hip pointer in similar fashion.
Bosa’s plan went swimmingly — until it didn’t.
He racked up his second sack of the afternoon in the third quarter, only to pull up lame on the other side.
“I guess I was compensating,” Bosa said. “The same thing happened to my other oblique. We’ll see what I’m feeling like tomorrow.”
Bosa couldn’t finish Sunday’s game, and the 49ers defense didn’t have enough gas without him to close out the Seahawks. They’d allowed just 3.3 yards per play and no touchdowns with Bosa on the field, but Seattle racked up 6.1 yards per play and two scores with Bosa off the field. Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith sprinted for 34 total yards on the final drive, including the game-winning touchdown run with just seconds left, to send the 49ers to yet another vexing defeat.
They’ve now blown three fourth-quarter leads against divisional opponents. They’re 5-5. They’re in last place in the NFC West. And their play seems like the embodiment of Bosa’s exasperating injury: Whenever one problem has appeared neutralized, another one has popped up.
Against the Seahawks, offensive stagnation took over as the biggest issue. The 49ers, after averaging 7.9 yards per play in a 36-point October outburst in Seattle, managed only 17 points on 4.9 yards per play against the Seahawks this time.
Sure, Seattle’s defense was healthier this time around, while the 49ers offense was missing tight end George Kittle and receiver Brandon Aiyuk — both of whom were important contributors last month. But such a massive drop in production can’t be explained only by personnel shifts, especially since the 49ers now have running back Christian McCaffrey back in the fold.
McCaffrey, morose at the postgame lectern, blamed himself for the offense’s failure to close out the game with about three minutes remaining.
“I’ve got to make a better read on one of those runs and close it out there,” McCaffrey said. “At least from my perspective, that’s what I’ve got to do.”
But 10 games in, there exists more than enough data to suggest that the 49ers’ problems on offense can’t be boiled down to a missed run here or a blown block there.
Sunday’s loss featured a bevy of self-inflicted wounds, including drive-stalling penalties that coach Kyle Shanahan lamented afterward. But a hard truth has persisted throughout the entire season: Shanahan’s offense — despite some valuable weaponry — simply isn’t operating with enough room to unleash consistent productivity.
According to NFL Next Gen Stats, the 49ers entered Week 11 having averaged the least yards of separation at the time of the catch in the NFL. They ranked No. 32 after having ranked No. 13 with 3.5 average yards of separation at the time of catch in 2023.
Average yards of separation at time of catch, 5 worst NFL teams
- Carolina Panthers: 3.3
- Tennessee Titans: 3.3
- New York Giants: 3.3
- Dallas Cowboys: 3.0
- 49ers: 3.0
The other four teams at the bottom of that list are a combined 10-29. The 49ers are the outlier at 5-5, but perhaps the slivers of success that they did see on Sunday — which came courtesy of the team’s star players — are the reason why.
Take receiver Jauan Jennings’ extraordinary efforts, including carrying four Seattle defenders across the sticks during a third down in the fourth quarter. The 49ers likely wouldn’t have grabbed the lead in the first place without that play. And they might’ve been devoid of offensive highlights had quarterback Brock Purdy not dove to the pylon for a first-quarter touchdown or threaded an absolute needle to Jennings to convert another third-and-long later in the game.
The overarching point is that nothing came easily for the 49ers offense, which had only one explosive play on Sunday — a 22-yard connection from Purdy to Jennings. And though separation numbers can vary from week to week, 10 games of them indicate this wasn’t the first time the 49ers had strained to find the open space that had been a hallmark of their league-leading offenses in 2022 and 2023.
So what can the 49ers, whose margin for error this season might have completely vanished with this loss, do moving forward?
Former quarterback Kurt Benkert, who spent a chunk of 2022 on the 49ers’ practice squad, opined on social media that the 49ers haven’t properly counter-adjusted to defensive pressure packages. These derailed the 49ers in their Super Bowl LVIII loss to the Kansas City Chiefs and have become more effective against them this season.
The 49ers offense doesn’t adjust protections they just throw hot.
— Kurt Benkert (@KurtBenkert) November 18, 2024
Other teams know this and can force their hand in critical situations just like we saw in the Super Bowl last year.
It’s mind blowing stuff that a simple flipper would fix. https://t.co/4aC6ds31Fk
Answers in football, of course, are rarely simple. It’s a complex sport. Success is reliant on organizing chaos. All that’s clear is that the 49ers offense hasn’t operated as efficiently as before, and Benkert’s thoughts — since he’s worked under Shanahan — are certainly worth noting.
The 49ers, with road trips to face the Green Bay Packers and the Buffalo Bills looming, are talking in more generic terms.
“Just stay on the field, try to move the chains,” Purdy said. “We failed in that area. We’ve got to execute better. Stay on the field, find a way.
“Up next is Green Bay. We have to be all-in on that and not look up. We just have to look down and do our jobs. Get better as a unit. We just have a find a way to win. It’s the NFL. Nothing’s ever given to you.”
With the road ahead growing even more treacherous, the necessary improvement will only come if Shanahan can successfully counter-adjust on the fly. He’s done so before. That’s how the 49ers have seen so much success in recent years. That’s why team captains like linebacker Fred Warner can say that blown leads like Sunday’s aren’t part of the 49ers’ core identity.
But with these types of losses, there’s a point of critical accumulation that’s impossible for even Warner to ignore — and that encapsulated the 49ers’ grim mood leaving Levi’s Stadium on Sunday.
“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.”