The San Francisco 49ers are having a nightmare of a 2024 NFL season. San Francisco is 5-5 after a brutal Week 11 loss to Seattle on Sunday. The NFC West is still wide open, but the 49ers current reside in the cellar as a result of tiebreakers and a thee-way tie at 5-5.
49ers QB Brock Purdy issued a warning to his team after Sunday's loss. He explained how the 49ers need to change their mindset moving forward.
“Obviously [in] years past, it's like we put that behind us and play the next play,” Purdy said via ESPN's Nick Wagoner. “Just because we had success the last couple years doesn't mean just because something bad happens to us, we're just magically going to make up for it. We've got to have the chip on our shoulder to go take it every single play, down and game. We've just got to get back to that mindset.”
Linebacker Fred Warner did not hold back when talking about his feelings following the loss.
“It's infuriating, honestly,” linebacker Fred Warner said. “It's not like us. But that's just what we've shown this year. So I guess until we stop doing that, then that's who we are.”
The 49ers are firmly on the outside of the NFC playoff picture. Their prospects for the rest of the regular season are starting to look dire.
Many 49ers fans were hopeful that the return of Christian McCaffrey would turn things around. Unfortunately, it has had little effect on changing the team's fortunes.
49ers go down in history with epic choke-job in latest collapse
The 49ers are beginning to set the kind of records that no organization wants their fans to remember.
San Francisco has dropped multiple close division games this season, and ESPN's Nick Wagoner explained how rare that streak really is.
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“According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the 49ers have three divisional losses when leading in the final two minutes of regulation, which is tied for the most such losses by a team in a season since the 1970 merger,” Wagoner wrote. “San Francisco's three late-game letdowns have come in just four chances. The Niners are tied with the 2001 Carolina Panthers, 2000 Los Angeles Chargers, 1996 Baltimore Ravens and 1994 Washington Commanders as the only teams to have that many defeats in those situations on the résumé.”
Those three loses all share the same DNA. Each game was riddled with poor kicking, multiple turnovers, and special teams blunders. It is not an overreaction to say that if those games had ended differently, the 49ers would be in control of the NFC West.
Now, unless the 49ers can pull off a miracle down the stretch, the team may have to ask itself some tough questions during the offseason.
