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The 2025 49ers, clearly, are built to win. And to lose. Then to win again. And lose again.

For eight consecutive weeks now — from their Week 3 victory over Arizona through Sunday’s awkward 42-26 loss to the Los Angeles Rams at Levi’s Stadium — the 49ers have been thoroughly balanced, but not in the way any of their fans would most fervently wish.

Win, loss, win, loss, win, loss, win, and, inevitably as day follows night and Matthew Stafford lasers one to Davante Adams in the end zone … of course another loss.

This one dropped the 49ers to 6-4 and for now out of the top seven slots for the NFC playoffs. Which is not great. And the 49ers are certainly feeling the absence of so many injured stars and major contributors.

But it’s also not terrible. And the 49ers have experienced the terrible part in a very similar situation not very long ago.

“I will say win-loss-win-loss is significantly better than last year when it was like loss-loss-loss-loss-loss,” George Kittle said with a philosophical tilt after the game.

The 49ers were pushing the positive angle hard on Sunday afternoon, and they were right to do it.

Thanks to Mac Jones, they’ve stayed in contention without Brock Purdy for 80% of the season and maybe he’ll be back Sunday in Arizona. They’ve won a lot of games without Ricky Pearsall (return TBD), Brandon Aiyuk (TBD), and Fred Warner and Nick Bosa (both, of course, out for the season). They’ll have to keep doing it without Mykel Williams (out for the season), too.

If you want to write them off for letting Stafford and the Rams offense do whatever they wanted on Sunday on the way to a 21-0 lead, you also have to acknowledge that the 49ers’ defense has held up decently in other games, including a victory over the Rams a month ago … and won’t have to play them again in the regular season.

This is resilient team that got within a touchdown early in the third quarter on Sunday, this is a tied-together team, this is a team that still has every chance to make the playoffs.

But let’s say it without equivocation: This, by every practical measure, is currently a mediocre win-one-lose-one team, not a team that would’ve instantly turned into a Super Bowl contender if it had just added a semi-famous pass rusher at last week’s trade deadline.

You do that if you’re one or two players away from a Super Bowl title, the way the 49ers rightly believed about themselves in 2020 (when they traded multiple draft picks for Emmanuel Sanders), 2022 (same thing for Christian McCaffrey), and 2023 (same thing for Chase Young and Randy Gregory).

Would journeyman Arden Key really have changed this game? I don’t think so, and Tennessee didn’t even trade him, anyway. Jaelen Phillips? I don’t think so.

I’d say the same thing for just about everybody else who was rumored or was actually traded, not including Quinnen Williams, who cost the Cowboys a multiple-pick price that the 49ers absolutely were smart to avoid.

It is tantalizing, I understand, to picture what the 49ers could do with just one more decent pass rusher next to Bryce Huff (three QB hits on Sunday). I get that McCaffrey can carry an offense a long way, that Kittle looks great, and that, as Kittle says, the offense is capable of scoring a ton of points while the young defense figures out how to raise its game.

“I still think we could’ve made that a game,” Kyle Shanahan said. “I told them we can find a way to win any game that we’re in.”

But the Rams showed what a good and healthy team can do against a wounded one. And the Rams scored touchdowns on five of their six trips to the red zone, committed zero penalties, put up 401 yards, and did not turn the ball over.

The 49ers were game — they put up 393 yards of their own, but they committed two turnovers and were flagged seven times for 45 yards.

“This is life, and life gives you lessons,” Jauan Jennings said. “Either you’re gonna learn from them or not.”

His response to losing a huge fumble in the first quarter, when the 49ers were driving to try to cut into the Rams’ early 14-0 lead?

“You won’t see another fumble, how about that?” Jennings said.

This is what happens when you’re pressing, when you know the opponent has most of the advantages, and when you have to play perfectly. That’s how you make too many mistakes — at least every other game.

Would another pass rusher have fixed everything for the 49ers on Sunday? Two more pass rushers? Not enough to shut down Stafford, nope. Not enough to get the offense over the 26-point mark for the first time this season.

Not enough to challenge the Eagles at the top of the conference. Not enough to make a run to the Super Bowl. Just not enough.

If the pattern holds, the 49ers will beat the Cardinals next Sunday and get to 7-4. They’ll probably be back in the seventh playoff slot. And they don’t exactly have a brutal schedule down the back stretch.

Maybe the 49ers will figure it all out in a flash in the next few weeks and go on the kind of run that gets them home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs and scares a few favorites.

But that’s not the most likely scenario. The Rams just showed them the most likely scenario — whether these two teams meet in the playoffs or the 49ers have to win a big game down the stretch against some other healthier, better team.

The 49ers are built to earn the chance to play important games in December and January. And eventually, their season probably will be broken by it, too.