As playoff hopes fade, 49ers need to ‘do something special’ to turn their season around

Mark Konezny-Imagn Images

With five games remaining in the 2024 NFL season, it’s safe to say the San Francisco 49ers’ playoff hopes are hanging by a thread.

Worse, the 49ers have looked lifeless in their last two games – a 38-10 loss at Green Bay on November 24 and a 35-10 loss at Buffalo on December 1. In neither game did the 49ers look like they were in the playoffs. contender, and with injuries continuing to pile up, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to see how the 49ers will dig themselves out of this hole.

They’ll surely keep trying, but as head coach Kyle Shanahan pointed out after his team’s loss to the Bills on Sunday, it’s going to take something beyond what they’ve done in the past to get there. arrive.

“That’s the hole we put ourselves in and it made things a lot more difficult,” Shanahan said. “And if we want to get through this, we need to do something special here.”

This year’s 49ers team is 5-7 after 12 games and is two games behind the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC West with five games remaining. According to NFL.com’s playoff projections, the 49ers’ chances of making the playoffs are now down to just nine percent. They face a tough road to the end, starting with a home game next week against the Chicago Bears (4-8), followed by a home game Thursday night against the Los Angeles Rams (6 -6), a road game against the Miami Dolphins (5-7), a home game Monday night against the Detroit Lions (11-1) and a road game to close the season against the Cardinals of Arizona (6-6).

With the Washington Commanders currently holding the final wild card spot at 8-5, the 49ers may need to win the division to reach the playoffs. Either way, they may have to win to put themselves in a position to have a chance.

“Everyone has to win,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said after the loss to the Bills. “It was a must-win this week. It’s even stronger next week. So it’ll be like that from now on.”

What makes things more difficult is the fact that the 49ers don’t seem to have the ammunition they had in years past to get out of tough situations. They may have lost running back Christian McCaffrey for the remainder of the season due to a knee injury he suffered against the Bills. Defensive end Nick Bosa (hip, oblique), cornerback Deommodore Lenoir (knee), guard Aaron Banks (concussion) and left tackle Trent Williams (ankle) were all sidelined against the Bills , while linebacker Dre Greenlaw is still awaiting his season debut after spending most of the year recovering from a torn Achilles he suffered in last season’s Super Bowl. Wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (knee) and defensive tackle Javon Hargrave (triceps) are out for the season, and safety Talanoa Hufanga is on injured reserve with torn ligaments in his wrist. Meanwhile, linebacker Fred Warner is playing with a broken ankle.

Despite that, Shanahan expects better than what he’s seen from his team over the past two games.

“I’m really disappointed,” Shanahan said Sunday. “We have a lot more pride than that. And I know we certainly know we have people out and all that, but we can play a lot better than that. To have three turnovers these two weeks and not get any, I think it’s six to zero in two weeks and when you do that and you don’t stop the run like we did the last two weeks, I can usually guess the outcome.

Among the most notable comebacks from this core of players over the years was a 10-game winning streak to close out the 2022 regular season and win the NFC West after a 3-4 start and a 7-2 finish for qualify for the playoffs as a group. wild card in 2021 after a 3-5 start. Both of these teams saw their seasons end in the NFC Championship Game.

If this year’s team can bounce back from its current situation, it would be the most impressive and improbable comeback yet. But even though the chances seem slim at the moment, the team plans to keep fighting, starting with their next home game against the Bears.

“We’re not as good a team as previous teams,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said after Sunday’s loss to Buffalo. “So that’s kind of how I see it. We’re not the same team at all. Every team is different every year. But I’m not going to say this team is the same as last year’s team. last or that we are but I’m not fighting as hard.

“We have a lot of different guys. We’ve been trying to find our way since the beginning. We haven’t quite found it yet. There’s still a lot of season left and we hope to play better. But I’m not going to say that our team does not fight.”