SANTA CLARA — To be the person, you need to beat the person.
However the San Francisco 49ers haven’t overwhelmed Patrick Mahomes.
And within the third quarter of Sunday’s Tremendous Bowl rematch between the Chiefs and 49ers, because the Kansas Metropolis quarterback scampered down the sideline together with his trademark, toddler-like knock-kneed gait, with not one, not two, however 4 49ers defenders lacking their clear-cut alternatives to deliver him down as he gained 33 yards and arrange Kansas Metropolis’s third landing of the sport — the game-winner, it will end up — it was truthful for the Niners, their followers, and the world surprise:
Will they ever?
For the 49ers, it’s a query so elementary, so consequential, that the reply can tear a staff aside.
And proper now, seven years of proof factors in the direction of “No.”
“There’s no way to sugarcoat this. We got our ass kicked today,” Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan mentioned following his staff’s 28-18 house loss.
The Niners can’t cease Mahomes within the Tremendous Bowl, having misplaced each matchups with the Chiefs in 2019 and final season. They will’t cease him within the common season, both, having misplaced their earlier three video games, with the final two coming in blowouts at house.
He’s their bogeyman, their closing boss, their supreme bugaboo. And whereas he and his staff may play within the reverse convention and solely face the Niners sporadically — Sunday was the fifth matchup, common and post-season, since Shanahan turned San Francisco’s head coach — his presence and his still-unblemished file towards the Niners expose a critical vulnerability in San Francisco’s already fragile psyche.
Had the Niners lastly overwhelmed Mahomes on Sunday — regardless of the circumstances — they’d have exited Levi’s Stadium feeling just like the favorites to attain the staff’s singular objective, successful the Tremendous Bowl. They circled this recreation on the schedule when it was launched — it was the final word measuring-stick contest — and they’d have been justifiably driving excessive with a victory.
The inverse have to be true in a loss.
I gained’t say the Niners’ season is over. There’s an excessive amount of soccer to play, and an excessive amount of expertise remaining on this staff. (Even in its hyper-injured state.)
However Sunday definitely marks the turning level for this 49ers season that has been chaotic at its greatest and disastrous at its all-too-frequent worst.
And on this all-or-nothing season, that represents a referendum on an period of 49ers soccer.
Simply because the Niners, the media, and followers will appeared ahead to his recreation for months, we’ll all be look again on Sunday’s outcome within the weeks and months to return.
Both the Niners used this newest Kansas Metropolis barbecuing as a galvanizing occasion — one thing to deliver a fractured (in an all-too-literal method) staff collectively, bringing out a yet-to-be-seen greatest — or it was the purpose of no return for this not-quite-good-enough dynasty.
Sure, the approaching weeks will show to be Shanahan’s hardest check but. It’s one factor to construct a shrewd offensive plan for per week’s recreation. It’s an entire different problem to maintain collectively a staff that’s emotionally on the brink.
And make no mistake, that’s the place the 49ers stand.
As a result of even when Shanahan and the 49ers can discover a solution to overcome Sunday’s loss — to show a adverse right into a optimistic — there’ll all the time be doubt at the back of this staff’s thoughts.
And all indicators level to it being insidious.
This San Francisco squad was constructed to compete for titles and be glad with nothing much less. This staff is absolutely justified in its perception it could actually beat 30 of the opposite 31 NFL groups.
However nobody will deal with the 49ers’ drawback — their singular drawback, it appears — for them. Your entire football-watching planet — has each purpose to consider that Kansas Metropolis can be enjoying for soccer’s final prize in New Orleans in February. It’s successfully preordained with Mahomes at quarterback for the back-to-back champions, who’ve performed in 4 of the final 5 Tremendous Bowls.
So what perception can the Niners nonetheless harbor that this staff, now 3-4 on the season and with an harm record so prolific and pointed that it’s bordering on Shakespearean, will be capable to beat the Chiefs and Mahomes ought to they meet up once more?
The Niners had been eager to decrease Sunday’s loss as “only one game” in a dozen alternative ways.
The difficulty is that the loss got here to a staff that doesn’t simply have the Niners’ quantity — they’ve their letters and punctuation marks, too. They’re toying with them at this level, and the scoreline Sunday flattered the Niners, who had been 2-for-11 on third down, threw three interceptions, and possessed the ball for ten fewer minutes than Kansas Metropolis Sunday, all whereas Mahomes and the spectacular Kansas Metropolis protection made large play after large play when the circumstances of the sport known as for his or her greatest.
Mahomes’ greatness can solely be appropriately described as magic. “Patrick Mahomes stuff,” Niners tight finish George Kittle known as it.
Soccer is a sport of brains and brawn — how do you beat one thing downright ethereal?
And the way can the Niners suppose they’re the staff to do it when their season has felt so cursed from the beginning?
After all, Sunday caused one other vital, season-changing harm for San Francisco — Brandon Aiyuk left the sport within the second quarter with what’s believed to be a torn ACL in his proper knee. Pair that with an harm to go-to-receiver Jauan Jennings and an sickness that saved Deebo Samuel sidelined for many of the recreation, and the Niners had been operating out a third-team receiving crew within the second half Sunday. Such shorthandedness seems like par for the course for this staff.
The dearth of receivers was one of many many causes San Francisco misplaced, however the endless string of accidents hardly conjures up confidence sooner or later.
And the way does this staff push ahead when their confidence (and our bodies) are so bruised?
Over the previous couple of years, the Niners have delivered a collection of destabilizing punches to their opponents. The Cowboys, Packers, Lions, and Eagles all curse the Niners’ title like San Francisco does the Chiefs’.
How usually have I written that the Niners “broke” the opposition for the reason that begin of the 2019 marketing campaign?
Properly, the tables may need turned Sunday. And whereas the consequences gained’t be apparent instantly, once we look again on this recreation in a couple of months, we’ll know if that is true:
After six years of success all however one different NFL staff would gladly take, Mahomes may need landed the blow that lastly fell the once-mighty Niners.
