Mistakes cost the San Francisco 49ers their ninth win of the season. The team remains in the playoff picture, still holding onto the sixth seed in the NFC, but Thursday's 20-17 loss to the Tennessee Titans halts any momentum built from winning five of the previous six games.
"I think our best was needed tonight, and our best players didn't play our best game," tight end George Kittle said after the game. "I think that's kind of the feeling. Deebo obviously played really well, and just as an offense, we have to not make mistakes. False starts are tough, and we've got to put ourselves in position to win, which we obviously didn't do."
One player who played pretty good football over the last two months but put the 49ers in a tough position on Thursday night is Jimmy Garoppolo. The quarterback's two interceptions hurt the team, and his overall Pro Football Focus grade of 56.6 was his lowest since Week 7.
A quarterback who typically bounces back from such mistakes, Garoppolo wasn't able to do so on Thursday night. It wasn't all Garoppolo's fault, though.
"Two turnovers costs you, but they're not all just on him," head coach Kyle Shanahan said. "That's on everybody out there."
Despite Garoppolo's turnovers, Kittle never felt his quarterback lost control of the situation.
"He was confident," Kittle said. "I thought he did a good job of getting the sideline ready to go, the offense ready to go."
On the other side of the ball, the 49ers defense couldn't seem to get off the field. The Titans converted nine of their 16 third-down opportunities. That was a key factor in the game getting away from San Francisco, which entered halftime with a 10-0 lead.
"I think we felt like we'd play well. We thought we'd come out strong," Shanahan said. "I think we did. But you've still got to play good football in all phases. If I had to narrow it down right now, we didn't play good enough on third down, and then we had two turnovers, and they had zero."
The third-down situation and the inability to force turnovers are on the defense, and the players know they could have done more to help their team overcome the Titans' comeback.
"What ultimately ended up losing us the game was the third downs and the takeaways," linebacker Fred Warner said. "We had to do one or the other. If we won all those third downs, we're not talking about this right now. And if we took the ball away, then the third downs would have been covered up a little bit more. We lost in both those areas, and that's why we lost the game."
The 49ers close out the regular season with a home game against the Houston Texans in Week 17 and road game against the Los Angeles Rams in Week 18.
