When The Window Closes

49ers fans need to reconcile that this season - and team - are at a crossroads.

Over the last few years, whether it was COVID, the prior and future administration or a myriad of other things, I’ve realized that one of the worst emotions for me personally isn’t fear, it isn’t anger or sadness or anything else that might be a character in Inside Out.

It’s dread.

That sinking, hopeless feeling when something isn’t going right and it just … stinks. Dread often happens for me when it’s not something I can easily or quickly change and it’s just a bummer. Not so catastrophic as to cause genuine sadness or something, but it’s just there and it’s unavoidable.

Dread always isn’t as handsome and charming as this guy.

And yeah, if you think you saw this coming, then you too watched the 49ers cough up yet another win to a divisional opponent they should have beat by several touchdowns this weekend. This time it featured the Seattle Seahawks who the Niners had previously beat repeatedly and in theory have true problems on defense. The Niners found new ways to struggle on offense when it counted, with numerous penalties killing drives (including their last offensive drive which could otherwise have run out the clock). Their special teams weren’t as atrocious as they have been all season but punter Pat O’Donnell (in for the injured Mitch Wishnowsky) failed to pin the punt inside the 20 which gave Seattle better field position.  The team has now lost to all three divisional opponents – and led all three games with 2:00 or less on the clock.

Sigh.

For a team that started the season favored in every game on the schedule and was tied for the best odds to win the Super Bowl, this is quite literally inexcusable. There are so many ways to show via stats that the team is just exceptionally average. And sure, some of this is that the team has had some critical injuries to key players but … so what? So has almost every other team. The reason the team keeps losing is not because Brandon Aiyuk or Dre Greenlaw are injured – sure, their health would improve things, but they are losing because they just don’t do what it takes to win.

Special Teams

Head Coach Kyle Shanahan has said in the past that the Special Teams unit doesn’t have to win games for the 49ers, it just shouldn’t lose them. Shanahan will forget more about football than I’ll ever know, but this is both arrogant and flat out wrong. For one, that’s quite often the role of the the kicker, and we’ve seen across the league and with the 49ers in particular how crushing it is when a kicker can’t do this critical thing when it matters. Of course, Shanahan is also talking about the other parts of special teams – kick and punt coverage, the return game, etc. And the team is historically awful at all of this. This year it seemed like the team had found return men in Isaac Guerendo and Jacob Cowing – the team is third from the bottom in kickoff return yards and 25^th (out of 32 teams) in punt return yards. Kicker Jake Moody – who the team used a third round draft pick on in 2023 – has not only missed a few games, he missed three field goals in one game against the Buccaneers, only to win the game (sorry, Kyle) with a field goal as time expired. Punter Wishnowsky has also been injured, and as noted not particularly good when healthy. Of note, the team also used a fifth round pick on him a few years prior to drafting Moody.

In the good times, I called him “Mad Eye” Moody, but he’s lost this privilege until future notice.

I often feel like I’m screaming into the wind on this, but it’s inexcusable to draft special teams players this early in the draft. The two best kickers in recent  years in the NFL are Justin Tucker and Brandon Aubrey. Jake Bates has been a great story for the Lions this year (the best team in football). What do they all have in common? None of them were drafted. But instead of building depth on the offensive or defensive line, or at cornerback where the team always needs help, we took a frigging kicker. This will never not be a problem. If you want to use a sixth or seventh round pick on one of these guys, that’s fine … but it’s also unnecessary.

Defense

The biggest area of turnover in recent years has been the defensive coaching staff – while the team has also lost plenty on the offensive side, the consistency of Shanahan himself makes that a lot less painful. Losing Robert Saleh and DeMeco Ryans does. The team has also tried to replace DeForest Buckner, who they traded away years ago in order to re-sign Arik Armstead(who they also let go this offseason) and the replacement Javon Hargrave who was a massive free agent signing before last season hasn’t been it. Free agent signings Leonard Floyd and Maleik Collins have actually been okay, but there still isn’t a true pass rush threat next to Nick Bosa who has also not quite been himself this season and is currently battling injuries.

Quite literally NONE of this is Fred Warner’s fault.

The secondary has looked really solid, despite losing Mooney Ward who horrifically has had to deal with the death of his baby daughter, and the repeated injuries to Talanoa Hufanga at safety. But overall the defense has played fine – especially Fred Warner – until the end of games. Even a few games that team has won (Tampa, Dallas) they almost coughed it up. This has to be coaching, but it’s baffling to see why this is happening.

Offense

If I told you that the 49ers were second in the league in “total offense,” you might a) think I was lying or b) wonder how relevant that statistic is. I’m not lying, but it’s worth questioning if that really measures efficacy, or just yardage per game. Because the team has moved the ball repeatedly – Jordan Mason filled in capably while Christian McCaffrey was out, and CMC has been solid if unspectacular since returning. Brock Purdy spent most of the first half of the year finally getting credit from the national press for being a good quarterback, and while he struggled on Sunday he’s been really good all year long and will be the quarterback  here for years to come. Injuries to Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle hurt a LOT, and despite showing up to camp in what appeared to be world class shape, Deebo Samuel hasn’t seemed right for some time. Jauan Jennings has been spectacular, following up last season with proof on the field that he’s a legit receiving threat and often has led the team in every relevant pass catching stat.

But the team stalls out near the red zone. Some have said that the Shanahan offense has become predictable and that guys who have left San Francisco have made tweaks to stay fresh that Kyle hasn’t. I don’t know about that. They went to the Super Bowl last year and absolutely dropped the hammer on teams. This feels a lot more like something else…

Coaching

Let me as clear as possible – I think Kyle Shanahan is one of the top-five coaches in football and in no way, shape or form do I want him to leave San Francisco. But something is going on where the mojo is just off. It happens. This just doesn’t appear to be the 49ers year – and honestly, that is what happens. Every team (even, one imagines, in some far off future, the Kansas City Chiefs) doesn’t threaten to win the Super Bowl EVERY year.

Before the season started, I heard chatter mostly from national sports folks who said the vibes were bad with the Niners, with Aiyuk and Trent Williams holding out,  the mystery around CMC’s Achilles, and so forth. And that the fact the team has been SO close to winning two Super Bowls in the last five years and failed to do so … that this would have an effect on the team. Perhaps it has – and perhaps Shanahan is one of those people it’s affecting more than we see.

What is, of course, concerning is that this team was really built to win NOW. The “window” for a title has been closing for a few years and it’s really getting small now. The contracts they have already signed are onerous and Purdy is going to get his bag this offseason. All of this is to suggest that in addition to llikely not reaching that zenith this season, this off-season is going to be tough sledding.

Dread, indeed.