4 seasons in the past, the 49ers capped a disastrous, no-good, nothing-could-go-right 2020 season with a loss at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona — their non permanent residence amid the Covid pandemic.
So the venue was definitely becoming for the tip of one other disastrous, no-good, nothing-could-go-right season on Sunday.
The 49ers capped the 2024 season with six wins and a last-place end. Considering again on the final 18 weeks, that standing virtually feels too optimistic for this embarrassment of a workforce.
And that’s not my adjective. It’s star defensive finish Nick Bosa’s:
“Kind of an embarrassment. It doesn’t feel good. It’s hard to look the guys in their faces as a leader on the team, and that’s the product that we keep putting out game after game. It’s pretty embarrassing,” Bosa mentioned after the Niners’ 47 to 24 loss to the Cardinals.
Sure, the 49ers entered the season with a Tremendous Bowl-or-bust perspective, however it busted out nicely earlier than Sunday.
Was it Week 15, when the Niners successfully eradicated themselves from playoff competition, or the abysmal losses to bookend Thanksgiving that did the Niners in?
Or was the late-game choke loss to the Seahawks in Week 11 the loss of life knell for these Niners?
Perhaps it was Week 7 when the Chiefs got here to city and stomped the Niners in a Tremendous Bowl rematch, with the Niners shedding Brandon Aiyuk for the season.
The 2 early-season fourth-quarter collapses to the Rams and Cardinals have been definitely ominous omens for the marketing campaign. These losses put the Niners in a gap from which they by no means escaped.
Or one might argue that this season was over after Week 1— arguably the Niners’ finest win of the season. That’s when MVP-caliber working again Christian McCaffrey, who was anticipated to play in that sport, was dominated out on the final minute. The Niners saved him out for 2 months after that.
Perhaps the Niners’ season was cursed earlier than it even formally began, after they had the worst Coaching Camp in latest reminiscence, marred by aimless, blubbering contract negotiations with Trent Williams and Aiyuk, and a rotating listing of absentees, compounded by a way of entitlement that was by no means near justified for this season.
Oh, and the workforce’s first-round choose was shot in San Francisco on Labor Day weekend, only for good measure. The soccer gods went overboard with that smiting — depart the youngsters out of it. (Ricky Pearsall, it ought to be famous, recovered and performed in addition to anybody for the Niners within the season’s closing weeks.)
So, no, this was not only a “down” yr for the Niners. It was a fruits of three or 4 dangerous years into one.
And to repair it, the Niners’ braintrust — head coach Kyle Shanahan and normal supervisor John Lynch — must do the work of three or 4 good off seasons within the seven months earlier than Coaching Camp 2025 arrives.
This kneecap of a marketing campaign, now mercifully over, will, just like the 2020 season, outline Shanahan and Lynch.
The duo constructed this workforce up, went to a Tremendous Bowl, misplaced, after which fell aside the season after.
However the 2021 49ers have been younger and spry, and so they bounced again (although it took some time for the workforce to get going). The Niners adopted the robust 2020 marketing campaign with three straight NFC Championship Recreation appearances, proving that the infinitely injurious season was merely a blip. Sure, after resurrecting this group from the depths of ineptitude, Shanahan and Lynch’s program proved resilient, and it grew to become the envy of the league, spawning copycats from coast to coast.
However right here’s the factor in regards to the NFL: except you’ve Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes at quarterback, it’s not constructed for sustainable success. The acronym may as nicely stand for “Not For Long.”
Annual poaching from different groups, searching for a little bit of the 49ers’ secret sauce, depleted the workforce’s deep bench of gamers and coaches over the past 4 seasons. Shanahan and Lynch, undoubtedly partially constrained by a constantly month-shorter offseason than their friends, proved incapable of replenishing it within the time allotted.
And it’s that—greater than anything—that’s liable for this 2024 collapse. No matter luck smoothed over earlier Niners groups’ faults didn’t include them to this season, and the workforce didn’t have the depth on the roster or brainpower within the teaching ranks to stay aggressive because the workforce’s accidents reached comical ranges.
If this was one other group — a worse operation — Shanahan and Lynch could be searching for new jobs by the point you learn this. The 49ers have been as soon as that bottom-barrel operation. Don’t overlook that Shanahan was the workforce’s fourth head coach in 4 years when he arrived in Santa Clara.
However that’s not the case. With Shanahan and Lynch calling the photographs, the Niners have turn out to be one of many steadiest franchises within the NFL. Sure, that is their mess — you’d be hard-pressed to discover a workforce that wasted more cash in free company, all whereas placing collectively three of the worst draft lessons within the league earlier than a stable 2024 — however Shanahan and Lynch’ deserve the chance to wash it up.
The place to start?
Frankly, there’s a lot to do, wherever will do.
In spite of everything, the 49ers completed with a worse file than the Dallas Cowboys, who have been with out their beginning quarterback, Dak Prescott, for greater than half a season, boasted one of many worst defenses within the NFL, and lacked a single viable working again on their roster.
There are large issues, like in the event that they’ll hearth the workforce’s defensive and particular groups coordinators and the way a lot they’ll pay quarterback Brock Purdy on a brand new contract. (That’s, in the event that they pay him.) Will Deebo Samuel stick round for one more season? That’s a giant name to make, too.
There are the apparent issues, like nailing each free company (even with Purdy signed, they’ll nonetheless have cash to spend) and the draft, as this workforce must replenish its depth total, with a particular concentrate on its offensive and defensive traces.
After which there’s the little issues, like ensuring the following batch of entry-level coaches and front-office executives have the moxie and brainpower to shortly transfer up the latter, as so many members of the Santa Clara diaspora did earlier than them.
Between July 2024 and January 2025, it appeared as if nothing went proper for the Niners.
Between January and July 2025, practically all the things might want to go proper.
If that occurs, maybe the Niners can speak about successful a sixth Tremendous Bowl title once more within the close to future.
However the suitable to contemplate this workforce — this group — a perennial contender to the crown? That was the 49ers’ most important lack of the season.
