If you have been watching 49ers football for long enough, you've seen this movie before. A 49ers team coming off a soul-destroying playoff loss (or Super Bowl loss) talks and hypes up the following season as a revenge tour, only for the revenge to seemingly be played on them. In both 2014 (after 2013's gut-wrenching NFC title loss to the Seattle Seahawks) and 2020 (following a close Super Bowl loss to the Kansas City Chiefs), the team was unable to raise itself one more time, as a combination of injuries, discombobulated play, and poor coaching combined to sink the team into mediocrity.
After Sunday's latest loss, in the much-hyped Super Bowl rematch against the Chiefs, it looks like we could be seeing the echoes of that past again.
So what's the problem?
What's most perplexing about the 49ers four losses this season is that they could, and perhaps should, have won all four. However, too often the team seems to build mistake upon mistake, eventually burying themselves in an avalanche of errors that rolls downhill, obliterating all momentum in its path. One of the most frustrating aspects of it is that the heart seems to have gone out of the team. There appears to be very little fight on the field, and particularly this past Sunday, rookies like Malik Mustapha seemed to play the game harder and stronger than their more experienced counterparts. It felt very much like the team played the occasion, not the game itself, and disconcertingly, their energy looked shot.
This has so many echoes of a decade ago that it's hard to ignore them. Both rosters shape up as truly titanic outfits, but they simply had to push themselves one year too far, either emotionally or physically, and some of the play was truly putrid as a result. For the 49ers' late losses at the Rams and Cardinals this season, look at 2014's inexplicable losses to the then-Oakland Raiders and a particularly astounding collapse against the Chicago Bears. The echoes are all there, and in most cases, it left fans with the same feeling Sunday's result likely did: "I'm not sure this team is going anywhere this season." Sometimes, you're forced to ask if some of the team's stars even care if it does. Charvarius Ward has already commented on the 'vibes feeling off' this season, and seems to be taking business decisions himself, especially in run support, while others have already been handed large contracts and, thus far, played nowhere near that level.
That may seem harsh to some, but fortunately, unlike 2014, there's still some time to turn it around. The 49ers collapse in 2014 came in the second half of the season, whereas here, there's a week until the bye, and a win against the Cowboys leaves the 49ers treading water going into the second half of the season, but at least leaves open the possibility of a late season run a-la 2021. What happens next if that scenario comes to pass will mostly be up to the players. Do they have the stomach for the fight? Do they care anymore? Do they care, but have they burnt through their energy? All things are possible, but it's time to find out. One thing is for sure, the status quo isn't cutting it.
What about Kyle Shanahan?
Which brings us to the coaching staff, because Kyle Shanahan has some things to deal with, too. Even considering the absence of dynamic playmakers like McCaffrey, spotty play from the likes of Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel, and, certainly on Sunday at least, some of the worst play of Brock Purdy's 49ers career, it's tough to argue against the idea that this must surely be his worst coaching job since taking up the mantle of 49ers head coach in 2017. If your team is suffering in the way this 49ers team is, the focus ought to be on avoiding as many preventable mistakes as possible. That's not been the case for Shanahan so far this season.
His game management has been baffling, to the point where fans are no longer confident in the 49ers holding a lead, especially if it's by ten points in the fourth quarter. Also, despite his (well-earned) reputation as an incredible offensive play-caller, he's still not managed to solve the 49ers biggest glaring issue on offense: scoring touchdowns in the red zone. While it's easy to blame players and execution when you can't find a way to move the ball on first and second down in the redzone, a certain amount of it is on the coaching staff and its creativity.
The reason for a lot of these gripes—the odd, conservative playcalling, in-game decision-making, and the lack of creativity to solve issues—may lie in the most egregious example of Shanahan's strange decision-making: roster and depth chart management. Most of the confusion this season has come from who is put into the lineup for absent players, and in some cases, even players that have been added to the roster.
Most NFL coaches would dismiss these kinds of opinions with a boilerplate phrase like 'you don't see them in practice', which honestly feels like a cop-out. There is almost no way in the world that it should've taken multiple games into the season to realize the likes of Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles and De'Vondre Campbell were incapable of replicating Dre Greenlaw's coverage and leadership capabilities, no matter how good they were in practice.
The infuriating thing is less about replacing Greenlaw, because that's difficult (there's a reason he's an All-Pro player and one of the leaders of the 49ers defensive unit). It's the conservatism that's ingrained in the team's lineup and roster decisions. We're finally seeing Dee Winters get playing time, but it's taken 6 games of mediocrity from the above players before he's been fully introduced. Yes, Winters missed some time through injury, but even other players like Curtis Robinson (before he, sadly, sustained a season-ending injury, without getting to show what he could do) and Tatum Bethune never got a look. Nor is this the only example, as Renardo Green had to blow Isaac Yiadom's production out of the water before being reluctantly given a starting role, while WR Ronnie Bell somehow continues to get on the field to play like one of the least capable wideouts in team history as rookie Jacob Cowing kicks his heels on the bench.
It's baffling, and by far the biggest missing weapon in Shanahan's coaching toolbox. The absolute reluctance to play rookies or less experienced players is just bizarre. Perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise, since Dominick Puni had to not just clear the competition, but put oceans of talent between himself and them, before being able to start at the right guard spot, and he's probably been the most consistent 49ers offensive lineman this season. One of the most ridiculous quotes of the offseason went to Chris Foerster, who stated on Puni that:
Do you really want, even if Puni is the best player, is that the guy? Do you want him out there, opening day, Monday Night Football against the Jets? If he's the best player you do, but those are bright lights. Whereas opposed to Spence and Jon, who have done it.
This bizarre quote summed up the frankly weird attitude of the 49ers coaching staff. It honestly feels as though they would sooner accept a player who has 'done it', even if they've 'done it' at a mediocre level making key mistakes, than try and evaluate the potential ceiling of a young player. No one is claiming that Dee Winters, for instance, would've stopped the Rams and Cardinals on their game-winning drives. Perhaps he wouldn't, but I knew from the second the ball was snapped that neither Campbell, nor Flannigan-Fowles would, because they've proved it time and time again. Ditto Ronnie Bell, who has, to my knowledge, never made a play of any significant impact in a 49ers jersey, yet he's out on the field and the target late in the fourth quarter. No one should've been shocked when that ball was dropped.
In all scenarios, it just doesn't feel like the staff's putting the players, whoever they may be and whoever might be available, in the best positions to win the game. In that sense, it has echoes again of that 2014 season, where a combination of Greg Roman's antiquated offense and Jim Harbaugh's stubbornness and possible loss of effectiveness on the locker room (as well as a baffling decision to take an exciting, athletic quarterback and turn him into a pocket passer, but that's another article) exacerbated issues that already existed, particularly player injuries.
So what now?
This is not advocacy for firing Kyle Shanahan, because there's one final echo of the past to mention here, and it's a slightly more uplifting thought to bookend the article. We're not the only team and coaching staff that's been in this position in the past. As the Chiefs found a way to win on Sunday, my thoughts went to another much-maligned offensive-minded coach who blew a Super Bowl lead (and a few high-profile playoff games), had up-and-down seasons that enraged a passionate fanbase, and who seemed to have some pretty intense clock and game management issues in key moments.
While he had to change his environment to change his fortunes, that man was coaching opposite Shanahan on Sunday. His name? Andy Reid.
So try not to despair, Niners fans. Embrace the anger, have a catharsis (that might well be what that article is for me), but stick behind the team. For while there's work to be done, and in some cases, big re-evaluation needed of key components of the team, there's enough goodwill built up from both coaching and the roster to have faith that the 49ers will find a way to turn this ship around.
Eventually. Maybe just not this year.