We should always have seen it coming.
In spite of everything, the seeds of the 49ers’ unimaginable implosion in opposition to the Rams on Sunday, which dropped the defending NFC champions to 1-2 on the season, had been sown this previous offseason.
It wasn’t unhealthy teaching choices from Kyle Shanahan that undercut the Niners within the 27-24 loss.
Their quarterback, Brock Purdy, was distinctive on Sunday, too.
However in case you consider the analytics, the Niners had, at a number of factors, a 95 % likelihood of profitable their contest in opposition to the Rams.
They by some means discovered that different 5 %. They usually wanted all three phases of the sport—offense, protection, and particular groups — to do it.
Whereas it was a bunch effort in futility, Sunday’s loss actually got here down to 2 performs, made by two gamers who ought to by no means have been on the 49ers’ roster.
Two gamers that had been within the sport due to accidents to prime choices and unhealthy planning from San Francisco’s entrance workplace.
The Niners may need misplaced this sport within the ultimate three minutes Sunday, but it surely was actually misplaced in March and August.
That’s when the 49ers signed linebacker De’Vondre Cambell.
And that’s when the Niners stored Ronnie Bell on the crew’s energetic roster.
These two gamers had been on the epicenter of Sunday’s implosion. Bell was the goal of a go play that ought to have received the sport for the 49ers with 68 seconds remaining. Campbell was focused by the Rams on the following possession, establishing the game-winning subject purpose.
Why had been they on the market?
As a result of the 49ers had no different alternative however to play them.
The Niners constructed a stars-and-scrubs roster for this season, utilizing the identical mannequin they used final season. Solely final season, the Niners had been one of many least injured groups within the NFL.
Clearly, the Niners aren’t twice fortunate. Nothing has gone proper for San Francisco in 2024. To assume they might be after a run to the Tremendous Bowl is to chortle within the face of historical past.
On offense, San Francisco was down their prime three offensive weapons: Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, and George Kittle. In the meantime, Brandon Aiyuk remains to be not enjoying on the identical pace he displayed final season, a byproduct of lacking coaching camp after months of contract disputes.
Aiyuk, you’ll bear in mind, had not signed a brand new Niners contract the day NFL groups needed to minimize their rosters to 53 males. With Aiyuk not practising, the Niners stored Bell — decide No. 253 within the 2023 draft — as a seventh extensive receiver. They needed one other pass-catcher in case Aiyuk’s holdout continued (it lasted two extra days), and Bell was deemed the most suitable choice though he had a near-comical subject with drops in camp.
And Bell has remained on the roster amid accidents and Aiyuk’s sluggish begin. Laying low is usually the suitable plan at work.
It seems the Niners did want him this season. Amid all of the accidents, he was the third choice at receiver on Sunday.
He was focused twice within the sport. He dropped each passes, which had been thrown proper on his fingers, in good place. The second drop took what may have — ought to have — been a game-winning play off the board.
In fact, a Bell drop wasn’t the one factor that did within the Niners.
The Niners managed the sport for hours, embarrassing their so-called rivals of their home and riling up a crowd the place the pink significantly outnumbered the blue.
In the long run, the pink crew sang the blues, and the Niners had been the crew left feeling embarrassed.
And all of it occurred so quick. A subject purpose to offer the Niners a two-possession lead with 2:48 to play was missed. The subsequent snap, the Rams went 50 yards the opposite manner, and the sport was tied two performs later.
Then got here Bell’s drop, wiping a 23-yard achieve — that may have put the Niners in field-goal vary to win the competition — off the board.
A sack and 38-yard punt return later, Campbell entered the image.
The Rams had been attacking Campbell, the previous All-Professional linebacker, within the passing sport all contest. The Rams’ first landing, a 15-yard go to working again Kyren Williams, was run immediately at Campbell — there wasn’t an oz. of ambiguity about it.
They’d seen the tape of the season’s first two video games — they knew he couldn’t handle within the open subject anymore. And Rams coach Sean McVay — maybe the best playcaller within the NFL — dialed up one thing diabolical when his crew wanted huge yards quick.
He motioned out his tight finish, Colby Parkinson, forcing Campbell to play one-on-one protection in opposition to him outdoors the suitable numbers. Campbell couldn’t sustain with Parkinson as he ran down the sector, so he didn’t look again when the ball was thrown immediately at him, leading to a simple go interference name.
It was 25 free yards, cashed in on the good time. The Rams kicked the game-winning subject purpose two snaps later.
Why was Campbell on the sector as a simple goal for McVay?
As a result of the Niners’ first-choice beginning weak-side linebacker, Dre Greenlaw, tore his Achilles tendon within the Tremendous Bowl and is sidelined till the second half of this season, at greatest.
Campbell is on this crew as a result of the 49ers didn’t draft nicely sufficient to have a go-to alternative for Greenlaw already on the roster.
So the Niners went with Campbell, who was outplayed in coaching camp by Dee Winters however was given the job due to seniority. Winters, it have to be famous, has additionally handled accidents not too long ago.
All that, to be a sitting duck on a play that would nicely outline the Niners’ season.
This isn’t to exonerate Jake Moody, who missed a 55-yard subject that would have received the sport with below three minutes to play. Neither is it to say that particular groups coordinator Brian Schneider is doing job for San Francisco.
Numerous performs did the Niners in on Sunday.
However the two greatest blunders got here from two gamers that, frankly, mustn’t have been on the sector had the Niners’ entrance workplace completed a greater job.
The Niners have the quarterback to win huge video games. They’ve the top coach, too, though forces I don’t perceive and from which wish to distance myself have clearly cursed him.
And whereas the NFL is a league seemingly outlined by these two roles, the actual fact stays it takes a full crew to win or lose.
The Niners’ roster is just not ok, prime to backside, to consider they’ll repeat as NFC West champions, a lot much less convention or Tremendous Bowl champions.
If it isn’t the massive, blow-up performs by second-or-third alternative gamers, it’s the dearth of high quality play on the offensive line, or the defensive position, or the secondary, which is testing its depth after a poor begin to the season.
And whereas a few of these Niners’ stars will return within the weeks to come back, making this crew higher within the course of, others will miss time round that point, testing the roster in a brand new manner.
The Niners constructed a top-heavy roster.
Which means they banked on luck being on their facet.
Clearly, that’s not the case.
To be 1-2 amid the stretch of the season the place they need to be racking up wins (the second half of their schedule is brutal) reveals precisely how flawed that plan was.
Sunday’s sport is the sort of contest that may outline a season.
Initially Revealed: September 22, 2024 at 6:38 p.m.
