For months, it has hung over the 49ers.
Name it a hangover, a letdown, or karmic retribution, however 12 weeks into the season, they haven’t been capable of shake it.
The truth is, it simply retains getting worse.
The Niners have put some duds on the board this misplaced marketing campaign, however none of their underwhelming performances fairly evaluate to Sunday’s 38-10 loss to the Packers in Inexperienced Bay.
Is the Niners’ season technically over at 5-6? No.
However it’s spiritually over.
It might need been over earlier than it began: The 2020 vibes emanating from this group because the Tremendous Bowl loss in February have been unmistakable.
Now, they’re plain. The Niners are simply repeating unfavorable historical past at this level.
When San Francisco got here out of the midseason bye at 4-4, the group had one rule for the second half: Don’t lose back-to-back video games.
Do this, and your destiny will fall out of your fingers. And destiny would by no means be on the Niners’ aspect this season.
Effectively, the Niners misplaced that second straight recreation Sunday. It took them three weeks post-bye to supply the dying knell to a cursed marketing campaign.
And, my goodness, Sunday’s loss was a humiliation from begin (a near-fight pregame) to complete (Deebo Samuel refusing to speak to the media afterward).
Want we go over what occurred between these factors?
Sure, the 49ers stepped onto the Lambeau Discipline turf with out their three most necessary gamers—quarterback Brock Purdy (shoulder), defensive finish Nick Bosa (indirect, hip), and left sort out Trent Williams—however San Francisco continued to play the identical model of flawed soccer that has marred this season.
Inexperienced Bay didn’t even play significantly properly Sunday. Packers quarterback Jordan Love — on the lookout for deep-shot touchdowns as a substitute of controlling the ball with a lead — messed round and provided the Niners a handful of alternatives to make Sunday’s contest a aggressive recreation.
The 49ers refused, adamantly, to take benefit. This group insists on making it onerous on itself.
And in a recreation the place a Niners win would solely come by the smallest of margins, they turned in a self-sabotaging efficiency for the ages, not solely failing to take the Packers’ well-wrapped presents in the beginning of the vacation season, but additionally lacking tackles at a record-setting charge, committing 9 penalties — together with three on particular groups — and turning the ball over 3 times.
Sure, that’s the efficiency the Niners delivered when solely a clear recreation would do (and even that most likely wouldn’t have been sufficient to win).
There was a second midway by way of the second quarter Sunday, with the Niners already down 10-0 and pinned deep in their very own territory, that San Francisco’s protection had back-to-back 12-men-on-the-field penalties.
Sure, the Niners had been so disorganized that they had been referred to as for a 12-man penalty, which worn out an end-zone interception. Then, after an extended stoppage, they huddled and got here out with too many males once more.
Let that futility sink in for a second.
That is an unserious soccer group, people.
And the Niners needed to hone that degree of failure over the previous few months. Playoffs? Tremendous Bowl? Get actual. Sunday’s efficiency is what they’ve been working in direction of all season. The loss to the Packers was their showcase occasion.
So cease listening to anybody who suggests there’s a greater type of soccer mendacity dormant with this group. Ignore the concept if this group “just gets healthy,” they’ll lastly appear like a top quality operation.
It’s a misplaced 12 months — a byproduct of this struggle of attrition they name skilled soccer. It stinks, positive, however it may possibly’t be completely surprising, both.
And I do know what occurs subsequent. You might need erased it out of your reminiscence, although. I don’t blame you — it occurred in 2020, in any case.
Exterior of there not being a worldwide pandemic, the circumstances at hand for the Niners are shockingly much like these of 2020. The battered-and-bruised Niners went into their nationally televised Week 13 recreation towards Josh Allen and the Buffalo Payments with a 5-6 report and a misplaced perception that if they might get again to .500 on the season, every part could be OK.
They had been smoked — Allen labored them over — and the Niners admitted defeat and limped to the season’s end line.
Are you able to guess who the 5-6 Niners play subsequent in Week 13?
Let me put it this fashion: It’s not Brandon Allen.
It has been prompt that historical past doesn’t repeat itself, however it does rhyme.
This would possibly as properly be a homonym.
So let’s study the lesson from the previous:
In a season outlined by sinking play and lowered expectations, let’s skip the half the place we faux there’s one thing left for these Niners.
August malaise has changed into November agony, and it’s solely going to worsen in December.
So, if the Niners can land an oz of luck this season, let or not it’s for his or her draft place in April.
Initially Printed: November 24, 2024 at 6:35 PM PST
