There's no two ways about it: the San Francisco 49ers are having a brutal season.
Taking the field in Week 1 with sky-high expectations, what with eight-year head coach Kyle Shanahan having just taken his team to the Super Bowl last year, the 49ers lost games they should have won, lost key players at seemingly every turn, and suddenly sit at 5-6 as longshots to win the division?
Disappointing? For fans in Niners Nation, you bet; Shanahan's team had seemingly pulled away from the rest of the division in the two seasons preceding. Losing the Super Bowl was supposed to be a step on the way to grander things, a much-needed lump on the road to an NFC West dynasty with the least-likely starting quarterback in the NFL, “Mr. Irrelevant” Brock Purdy, running the show. But instead, this 49ers campaign looks a lot closer to 2020, when seemingly nothing went right, and John Lynch took a big swing on an FCS quarterback who crashed and burned in a disastrous way.
Are the 49ers on the way to another Trey Lance-level disaster? Or could they still pull a rabbit out of their hat, return to the playoffs, and maybe make something out of nothing on the way to more years of the Shanahan regime?
Now granted, the NFC West might just be out of reach, as the Arizona Cardinals are up two games over the 49ers and have a much easier schedule left on the books than their western rivals, but that isn't the only way a team can get into the playoffs. No, with three teams now afforded wildcard berths each year, the 49ers still have a chance to get where they want to be, even if the path isn't going to be easy. Fortunately, Shanahan has enough going for him to earn the benefit of the doubt, as the 49ers won't truly be out of contention until they are officially eliminated in the eyes of most NFL fans.
1. Kyle Shanahan knows what's wrong
When the 49ers left the field in Week 12, there weren't too many happy faces on the sidelines.
Backup quarterback Brandon Allen struggled to get much going through the air, completing just 17 of his 29 passes for 199 yards, a touchdown, and an interception. The defense was even worse, allowing Green Bay to score on six of their ten drives. And worst of all, the rushing game, Shanahan's usual bread and butter, was a borderline non-factor, amassing just 44 rushing yards on 16 carries when Allen desperately needed some support on the ground.
Fortunately, while discussing the 49ers' issues on Wednesday, Shanahan acknowledged that his team has been inflicting much of their issues onto themselves, with those issues needing to be tightened up in order to get back on track.
“There's not much secret to it. We've got to tackle better, and we can't turn it over three times and three drives in a row,” Shanahan told reporters. “The penalties that we can change, a couple of pre-snap penalties, one 12-on-the-field, one bad holding that we had, those are the ones that we've got to fix.”
On one hand, telling fans that a team will simply fix their self-inflicted issues is easier said than done, as if the 49ers could tackle better, they likely would have over the past few days. Still, some things they can fix, like running the ball an equal number of times versus passing attempts, and regardless of who is starting at quarterback, that has to be part of the strategic turnaround, even if Shanahan doesn't want to run a three-running back platoon like some other teams.
2. The 49ers have four winnable games left in 2024
For the 49ers to actually get into the playoffs, they need to *spoiler alert* win games. At 5-6, they are currently in last place in the NFC West, and with just six games left to play, the margin of error will certainly grow tighter with each passing week should the Ls continue to stack up. Factor in a Week 13 showdown against the Bills in Buffalo, where the West Coast team could have to play in the snow for the first time this year, and the 49ers may find themselves with a 5-7 record by the end of the first day of December.
And yet, from Week 14 on, things open up in a major way, with just two teams with winning records left over their final five games of the season.
In Week 14, the 49ers have the Chicago Bears, who effectively gave away their Thanksgiving game against the Detroit Lions due to some truly horrible clock management issues. From there, the 49ers have the Los Angeles Rams at home and the Miami Dolphins on the road, both of whom have coaches with connections to Shanahan but have largely underperformed versus expectations in 2024.
Yes, there's still the Lions on the schedule in Week 17, which is probably penciled in as an L in the eyes of most fans, but in Week 18, against the NFC West-leading Arizona Cardinals? The 49ers could take a step forward in the division and punch their tickets to the playoffs via a wildcard spot if things shake out their way.
Is 9-8 good enough for a wildcard spot in the NFC? Fans will soon find out.
3. The 49ers' locker room hasn't quit
And last but not least, why do the 49ers still have a chance to make it to the postseason? Well, because, as Shanahan pointed out during his Wednesday media session, San Francisco's locker room hasn't given up just yet, instead banded together by their collective desire to shock the world and prove their online doubters wrong.
“The vibe in our locker room is exactly how you would think it'd be. We're upset with where we're at in our record, but we've got a tight group, and we play together. I think if you live in the world online, whether you're dealing with our profession or your kids dealing with social issues in school, you're not going to be happy if you're dealing in the world online,” Shanahan told reports.
“And I've definitely coached long enough that I don't deal in that world. Only online I look at is usually movie stuff and rap battles and funny things that animals do. Good or bad. When you listen to good stuff, like that'll mess you up more than anything. And then, when you listen to bad stuff, it'll crush you. That's not why any of us do this. You've got to work with younger guys on that. I think it's harder just because of the world that they've been brought up in. But don't make someone else's reality your reality. You've got to focus on what your job is and never get away from that.”
If the 49ers had collectively packed it in like some other NFL teams – you know the ones – then yeah, their season would probably be over; the divisions are likely lost, the wildcard race is too tough, and injuries could derail any real comeback attempt. But if the 49ers rally, get some good luck on the injury front, and win four of their final six games, you never know, they might just get hot at the right time to do some damage.
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