Sometimes in a cursed season you can bide your time and wait for the perfect moment to shut it all down, and sometimes that decision is roughly thrust upon you.
Sometimes Christian McCaffrey falls to the snow and the entire 49ers franchise can’t really get back up. Yes, the 49ers are down now — and have been down almost all season. As the losses and injuries continue to pile up, they’re going to stay down for a while. Probably all the way into next spring, training camp, and the start of the 2025 season.
There’s little doubt: McCaffrey’s fall early in the second quarter — and his wobble to the sideline in obvious distress — was the symbolic end of the 49ers’ 2024 season. Not mathematically, because the NFC West continues to be a jumble and the 49ers, at 5-7, could theoretically get back into this. Not structurally, because the players still have careers to plot out and the coaching staff still has a roster to manage through the final five games of this season.
“We just have to try to stand up and go again,” Fred Warner said.
But spiritually and logically, McCaffrey’s tumble was it. The. End. After the game, Kyle Shanahan said that McCaffrey has a PCL injury (knee) that could keep him out for the rest of this season, which was pretty obvious from the millisecond McCaffrey went to the ground without being hit.
The 49ers offered brave words after the 35-10 loss in Buffalo amid snow flurries on Sunday, their second consecutive blowout loss. They have to speak like this and maybe even believe some of it as long as they have a hypothetical shot at the playoffs. It’s probably at less than 10 percent according to the computers, and less than 1 percent if you factor in all the other injuries (Nick Bosa and Trent Williams missed their second consecutive games) and now the McCaffrey absence. But if you play football, you have to play until you’re told not to play.
“Every game’s gotta be must-win for us,” Brock Purdy said. “We don’t have any room, clearly, if we want to make the playoffs. … That’s plain as day. We all know it.”
The latest McCaffrey news, of course, comes after the reigning NFL Offensive Player of the Year missed the first eight games of this season with leg injuries and never really seemed to get going once he returned — until the first few series of this game. Then, the crash into the snow.
From there, the 49ers, after a good start on Sunday, pretty much fell apart, mostly on defense, getting pushed back in the snow on 38 Buffalo rushes for 220 yards. While their spirit was (somewhat) willing, their bodies were telling a very different story.
Really, the 49ers haven’t been whole for a single moment of this season. And beyond that, it just never felt right — from the accumulated wear-and-tear of all their recent deep playoff runs to the emotions of losing the Super Bowl last February to the contract tussles with Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams to special teams blunders and the close losses to the unending run of significant injuries.
Remember, the 49ers had to pull out of joint practices against the Saints last August because they didn’t have enough healthy players to go through all the drills.
So what do the 49ers do now, starting with Sunday’s game at Levi’s Stadium against the Chicago Bears? Shanahan will be the last one to throw in the towel, but there have been adjustments already to get more time for younger players, and there surely will be additional chances as the Jan. 5 finale beckons. Now, with McCaffrey out, the 49ers can fully turn the ball-carrying responsibilities to Jordan Mason and Isaac Guerendo. Even if McCaffrey’s injury is minor, they should hold him out. They can keep Bosa and Williams out another week or two. Because if they’re rushing them back … well, why?
This is not what the proud veterans in the locker room want to hear and see, but I think at some point, they get it, too. They’ve been there for all those losses. They know the difference between a winning situation and a dead-end.
Maybe the 49ers don’t need to push Purdy out there for all of these games. He was coming off a shoulder injury himself in this game and didn’t quite look 100 percent. They certainly will get push back from Warner on this, but he’s been playing with a fractured bone in his ankle for months now and could use some extra rest. Probably the same for George Kittle and Deebo Samuel.
And you never know which backups might give evidence that they shouldn’t be backups anymore. The 49ers might have found something in tackle Jaylon Moore, who has stepped in at left tackle for Trent Williams and looked solid. Could Moore, still only 26, be the answer at right tackle next season, and maybe as the heir apparent on the other side when Williams retires? And 26-year-old Ben Bartch, forced into the left guard spot with Aaron Banks out, looked pretty good on Sunday, too. Could he take over that position next season? This a potential head start for the tougher decisions the 49ers will have to make in the spring.
In a thematic way, they can approach the offseason the way the Eagles approached last offseason after their collapse late in 2023 and then in an early playoff exit. They didn’t panic. They didn’t tear everything up. They brought in two good coordinators, they reset some other pieces, they signed MVP candidate Saquon Barkley, and they also kept calm after a mediocre start to 2024. Now they’ve won eight consecutive games and are 10-2, battling the 11-1 Lions for the top seed in the NFC.
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni isn’t nearly as accomplished or heralded as Shanahan (not counting the angry 49ers fans currently chanting for a firing), but I think there’s a lesson or two worth examining here. For the next five games, Shanahan can take a broader look at Nick Sorensen’s defense, which definitely isn’t at the 49ers’ lofty standards of just a few years ago. And Shanahan can start a self-evaluation, too, instead of grinding every second just to hold on to 2024.
Shanahan’s had obstacles put in front of his offense, but he also hasn’t done a great job of running games. Mostly, the 49ers just can’t get into the end zone. They’re outgaining their opponents quite healthily, even after the last two games, but opponents have scored 35 touchdowns to the 49ers’ 27. Last season, the 49ers scored 61 TDs and only gave up 31. And it was 5 to 1 in favor of the Bill on Sunday, by the way.
So many things have gone wrong for the 49ers this season. Almost nothing has gone right. Many more bad things happened Sunday. Which gives the 49ers the chance to take a deep breath, ease up on the pedal for 2024, start thinking about 2025, and tell themselves it’s not a surrender. It’s a necessary evolution.