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Through clenched teeth and certainly some self-editing on the fly, Kyle Shanahan made a point to himself, his team, and everybody else on Sunday.
He was furious, naturally, over the 49ers’ woeful outing — especially in the desultory first half — in a 26-15 loss in Atlanta, underlining how disappointed he was and how the performance was “unacceptable.”
But Shanahan seemed to have a larger theme about this day and this 49ers situation and he made it by repeatedly calling back to the 49ers’ huge effort to beat Atlanta a week earlier and by emphasizing that Sunday’s loss, to fall to 5-3, changes nothing about the 49ers’ big-picture approach to this season.
Yes, this was a stark reality check for a 49ers’ team decimated by front-line injuries. But mostly, this was a reality confirmation.
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There are only so many things the 49ers can do about the void spots everywhere on their depth chart and they’re not fooling themselves about it. But they can expect and demand more from themselves than what happened on Sunday.
They probably can’t be great by January. But they certainly can be less embarrassing than they were in the first half.
“Our reality is pretty realistic in what we deal with every week,” Shanahan told reporters in Houston. “We knew we had a tough game versus Atlanta. We felt we had a tough game today. … Yeah, it’s definitely harder when you lose really good players. But we’ve had that situation throughout this year.
“All I want us to do is play as good as we can play, then you can deal with whatever. And today we didn’t play as good as we can play.”
The 49ers know they still have enough — especially when Brock Purdy and Ricky Pearsall are back in the lineup, maybe next Sunday — to win a lot of games if they play at high efficiency, which is how they got to 5-2 in the first place.
But if they needed a reminder that they’re always just a clunky quarter or listless half away from getting waxed, the Texans were happy to provide it.
The 49ers obviously want to be better. But Shanahan and John Lynch have been signaling for weeks that they won’t make a reckless trade just to reach for something that’s probably not possible any more this season.
Right now, the 49ers are either the most vulnerable good team in the league (see Sunday) or they’re the most dangerous shaky team (see the Atlanta game). Really, without Fred Warner and Nick Bosa for the rest of the regular season and with more injuries piling up every week, the 49ers are mainly a wounded, middle-rung team just hoping to fight its way to the playoffs and see what happens.
The next time they’ll be true Super Bowl contenders will probably be in 2026 with Nos. 54 and 97 back in uniform and Purdy fully healthy, and that’s only if this team can avoid a third consecutive season of injury mayhem.
Oh, and the 49ers need to keep their 2026 first- and second-round picks to use on at least one offensive lineman and probably another defensive lineman after drafting multiple D-linemen in the early rounds last year.
Which means that a moderate trade for an effective pass rusher (to at least take Bryce Huff’s place after his injury a week ago) would definitely help; but anything that would involve moving a premium pick would be irresponsible.
“Nothing changes anything,” Shanahan said when asked about their position in the trade market. “It has to do with what’s available out there. And does it help us this year, does it help us next year? Usually as things get closer, you get a little more idea on who’s real and who’s not and we’ll evaluate that for the short term and the long term.
The 49ers can win games and have this season, but they’re definitely not an elite team that can roll through a schedule. In talent level, they were pretty much even-up against the Falcons a week ago but imposed their will on the game.
In the same way, the 49ers are basically parallel with the Texans right now. But with this 10 a.m. West Coast body-clock kickoff, Mac Jones a sitting duck in the pocket against the Texans’ flying pass rush, the Texans fully committed to limiting Christian McCaffrey (68 total yards from scrimmage after going for 201 a week ago), and the 49ers’ defense lacking the firepower to slug it out with Houston’s wobbly offense, the 49ers just didn’t have the wherewithal to win this game.
It probably will be a similar mid-vs.-mid situation — also with a 10 a.m. West Coast start — next Sunday in North New Jersey against the Giants right before the trade deadline. Then not too different with rematches against teams they’ve beaten already this season: a home game against the Rams and a road game against the Cardinals.
And then and then and then … well, you get the point.
The 49ers have a generationally easy schedule this season with continuing chances to take advantage of it. But they also have so many injuries and weaknesses that they’re not so scary to any other team, either.
That’s the realistic reality. It’s healthy that they’re not denying it, however much Shanahan and Lynch might want to rage against the misfortune of the past two seasons and trade every future draft pick to try to fix it immediately.
There are no magic fixes in the NFL — not to dislocated ankles, torn ligaments, or detonated dreams. When you have to deal with all these things, you can only clench your teeth, do some self-editing, and just try to hold on, keep to the plan, and stay sane through the roughest days.