Heartbreak is inevitable, even for one of the best teams in the NFL in 2023. Can they run it back or is the Goldilocks phase over for the 49ers?
LAS VEGAS, NV– 80 yards. That’s the amount of yards Christian McCaffery ran for in Super Bowl LVIII in an anguishing loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. He was supposed to be the main staple in an offensive attack led by Kyle Shanahan that suffered a second half meltdown allowing the Chiefs to come roaring back. Instead, he was relegated to an auxiliary role that left the 49ers scratching their head about what happened after halftime.
“Yes, we knew they were gonna try to run the ball,” Chiefs’ cornerback L’Jarius Sneed told reporters. “We knew what they were gonna try to do. We just wanted Brock [Purdy] to throw the ball.”
The 49ers had a gameplan all week. Give Christian McCaffery the ball. At all costs. Establish a dominant run game to help Purdy in the passing attack. It’s not a chicken or egg situation. This has to be done in order. Sure McCaffery had 80 yards as well receiving, however, this means that Purdy had to pass the ball in order to get it to him. No downhill angles were taken, the linemen weren’t run blocking, and the play-action fake wasn’t set up. In the second half the 49ers collapsed. And that same question of can the 49ers maintain dominance will be asked again and again.
While the Chiefs have been the pinnacle of the AFC, making it to at least the AFC championship game six times in a row, in recent memory, the 49ers have been right there with them. General Manager John Lynch has crafted a roster that resembles something of a super-team and an offensive juggernaut. San Francisco possesses a team that had seven All-Pros in 2023 and are slated to return.
By nearly every measurable statistic, the 49ers were the team this year. First in Pro Bowl players, top five in both offensive and defensive scoring, and a quarterback in MVP contention up until the end of the year. While it may not have been the result that San Francisco wanted, it is what they got. Now they must reload for next year.
According to DraftKings Sportsbook, the 49ers have the highest odds to win the Super Bowl in 2024, and it makes sense. No free agent loss to this team would be game-wrecking. A list of notable free agents includes Chase Young, Jauan Jennings, Randy Gregory, and Tashaun Gipson. After Jennings’ monster performance in the Super Bowl, it’ll be hard pressed to see him departing. For the most part, the majority of San Francisco’s core will remain in place for 2024.
That still means this team has to essentially restart after getting so close. Answering questions after the Super Bowl, San Fran’s players found it tough to grapple with the loss after dominating for the entire first half.
“You can have the most talented roster in the NFL, which I really do think we do, and have incredible coaching, which I do think we do,” fullback Kyle Juszczyk said Tuesday. “We can have all the pieces, but it never guarantees you the win. At the end of the day, it’s not basketball. It’s not a seven-game series. You can put yourself in the absolute best position, but sometimes you get beat.”
“It’s not easy,” linebacker Fred Warner said Tuesday. “I’ll say that. It stays with you all the way. Even back in ’19 when we lost that one, it stays with you. It gets easier, but it’s going to stay with you all the way through. The thing that gives me hope is knowing how much it means to me, how much it means to Kyle and the players and John [Lynch]. The things that make up a championship team, I know we have those things.”
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With most of the players returning for yet another shot at the Lombardi Trophy in 2024, the team is naturally viewing the upside rather than anything else. Yet, the question of the 49ers being able to win big games remains a huge stain on their hopes. The team lost badly in the regular season to their number one seed counterpart in the Ravens, 33-19. Throughout the playoffs it looked like the Shanahan Program was ready to expire for the ’23 season at any moment, being nearly upset by the Packers in the Divisional Round and would’ve been knocked out if not for an utter disastrous choke job by the Lions in the NFC Championship. Then, the matter of the Super Bowl also comes into play, up by 10 at one point and leading 10-3 going into halftime.
“I mean you’d love to fix perception, because I’d love to win one for what I know about football, and I know if I fix perception that means I did everything I wanted to do, which isn’t fix perception, it’s win a damn Super Bowl,” Shanahan said. “But I also know, when you say big games, we’ve had to win a bunch of big games to get to Super Bowls. We’ve won a lot of big games here, we’ve won a lot of big games to get into playoffs, the fact that we keep getting there shows you how much we win big games.
“These two Super Bowls have been tough, losing to Kansas City. But to think that if we win that, that means I can win a big game? No, that means our team won the Super Bowl.”
“You guys can have any narrative you want, but the success or the failure, it comes down to one game, and I hope that I can be a part of a team that wins a game at the end of the year, but to say the Niners can’t win a big game would be an extremely inaccurate statement.”
At the end of the day, the San Francisco 49ers have harnessed the roster capital in order to make a run another deep playoff run or maybe even get over the hump. But for now, the 49ers are left with an offseason full of regrets, memories, and what-ifs. And more importantly, a summer full of question marks.
