We can all stop pretending. This is not the year for the San Francisco 49ers.
This team is not following through on its promise: one last ride, a final chance for glory. It is not a team with enough depth, nor dominance on either end of the ball to compensate for the breakdowns that are happening so frequently, at the moments that matter most.
Their last-second, 20-17 loss to the Seattle Seahawks Sunday was not a shocker. It was a deserved result on a gloomy Santa Clara afternoon in which the 49ers looked like they woke up just as tired as everyone else. As has been the case too many times this season, they failed to take advantage of their many opportunities to close out a game that was exceedingly winnable.
To be a team flawed in the ways the 49ers are and be a contender, your quarterback has to carry you. Brock Purdy has come up clutch at times, but failed in other key moments.
Their defining trait as a team is inconsistency. Oh, and they're old. They're old and injured.
Brandon Aiyuk is out for the year. Javon Hargrave is out for the year. Nick Bosa suddenly has matching oblique injuries on either side. George Kittle, the best tight end in football, and maybe the most valuable man on offense, missed this week with a hamstring injury. Trent Williams said he played at "65-70 percent" on a bad ankle. Christian McCaffrey said he needs to "get everything back to normal" — "some plays I feel great, some plays I..." — with his performances. Deebo Samuel doesn't look like he has much juice left. Even their punter, Mitch Wishnowsky, is hurt. And that's after their kicker, Jake Moody was hurt.
Despite all of that, we're supposed to believe this injury-ridded, error-defined team is destined for greatness? That our eyes deceive us week after week? Enough.
This team has been at this for a very long time, and that comes with a price. 2020 was a reckoning. So is 2024. The attrition has caught up with them. They had a joke of a training camp, and it showed from the start of this season. They came out slow and have treaded water ever since.
The last two weeks were supposed to be get-right games. Come out of the bye week refreshed, sharper, with Christian McCaffrey fixing the offense. That was the pitch.
Their relative silence at the trade deadline — Khalil Davis, the defensive tackle they traded a 2025 7th-round pick for, was inactive Sunday — was a firm reflection of their season-long swim within the waters of tepidity.
This offense looks as sloppy as ever. And you can blame it on a lack of Aiyuk, a lack of Kittle, a lack of whatever. But injuries happen, and they happen more for older teams, especially those coming off long playoff runs. The reality is that they have high highs and low lows with their quarterbacking, key penalties at key junctures, a subpar offensive line, a failure to run the ball dominantly, and a defense that is good, but not great enough to grit out the tight wins they could once bet on them to secure.
I will happily be proven wrong. And because of the talent on this team, there's always that possibility that they can sneak into the playoffs, get healthy at just the right time, and win the NFC. I'm not saying that's impossible. I'm saying this team has shown no reason to believe that is anywhere near likely.
Far likelier is the possibility that they lose the next two games, and take a repeat gut punch loss to the Buffalo Bills. In 2020, those Bills crushed their spirits. And two weeks from now, in Buffalo, that might just be the case again.
Maybe they even lose to Green Bay and Buffalo and Detroit and win every other game against the Bears and Rams and Dolphins and Cardinals to squeak into the playoffs at 9-8. That's absolutely possible. But what does it matter if they cannot beat the other contenders?
The 49ers have beaten the Jets, Patriots, Seahawks, Cowboys and Buccaneers. Those teams have a combined record of 18-35. The Seahawks are the only team as good as .500. The 49ers have proved nothing this season, and there's no reason to expect that they will.