49ers are clinging to hope while enduring a ‘season from hell’

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — We envisioned a Last Dance, a proud, talented ensemble’s desperate quest for deliverance before the whole operation crumbled.

As it turns out, that was an overly cheery view of the 2024 San Francisco 49ers.

In retrospect — out of respect to Michael Jordan and friends — we might conclude it was a bunch of Bull.

Twelve games into what one 49ers assistant coach described as a “season from hell,” the defending NFC champions aren’t doing much dancing. Instead, they appear to be staggering to the finish line.

As cornerback Deommodore Lenoir put it Wednesday, “Bad news is all I hear.”

Besieged by injuries, beset with personal tragedies and, quite possibly, growing old and emotionally weary before our eyes, the Niners (5-7) are on the verge of playoff elimination — and a tumultuous offseason that will reshape the core of their roster.

They know what’s coming. For most of the past several months, and especially the previous two Sundays, they’ve seemed to be flailing in the face of finality. And yet, having advanced to two Super Bowls and four NFC Championship Games in the previous five seasons, the 49ers aren’t willing to concede anything.

“It’s been rough,” All-Pro fullback Kyle Juszczyk told me Wednesday, three days after his uncharacteristic fumble near the goal line epitomized the Niners’ 35-10 beatdown-in-a-blizzard by the Buffalo Bills. “It just felt like we never got into any rhythm this year, on either side of the ball.”

Then, mindful of the irrevocability suggested by those words, the 33-year-old smiled and added, defiantly, “But that changes now.”

For the 49ers’ sake, it had better. They’ve gone on unlikely runs during Kyle Shanahan’s eight-season coaching tenure — most glaringly in 2021, when they started 3-5 before rallying to reach the conference title game — but doing so now would seem to defy gravity.

The Niners’ mojo disappeared in September, when they followed up a seemingly impressive, season-opening victory over the New York Jets with back-to-back road defeats to the Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Rams. Since then, said the assistant coach, “Day by day, it’s been falling apart.”

With two home games coming up in the span of five days, the last-place 49ers believe they can get it together, get back into the NFC West race and overcome the Seattle Seahawks (7-5), Arizona Cardinals (6-6) and Rams (6-6) to win the division. Theoretically, it’s doable.

In reality, winning consecutive games against the Chicago Bears and Rams — let alone finishing strong against the Miami Dolphins, Detroit Lions and Cardinals — seems like a pretty big ask for a team that has looked torn and frayed since the start of training camp.

Some of it was self-inflicted. The front office was partially culpable for the 49ers’ “Bad Vibes Summer,” allowing contract disputes with wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (whose emotional mood swings ramped up the drama) and left tackle Trent Williams to drag on through the preseason before ultimately caving and signing both players to lucrative extensions.

Aiyuk, a second-team All-Pro in 2023, didn’t look like the same player this season before suffering a torn ACL in a Week 7 defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs. Williams, 36, a first-team All-Pro in each of the previous three seasons, has missed the past two games with an ankle ailment — part of a hellacious wave of injuries that has shelved some of the NFL’s most accomplished players.

Running back Christian McCaffrey, the 2023 NFL Offensive Player of the Year (on injured reserve with a torn PCL), and defensive end Nick Bosa, the 2022 NFL Defensive Player of the Year (sidelined by hip and oblique injuries), are among the Niners’ stars who’ve missed significant time in 2024.

The health-related absences have inspired comparisons to 2020 when the 49ers — also coming off a heartbreaking Super Bowl defeat to the Chiefs — cratered and wheezed to a 6-10 finish. “It was eerily similar to the situation we seem to be in right now,” long snapper Taybor Pepper said. “There’ve just been a lot of roadblocks this season — but it’s the NFL, and nobody cares.”

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The 49ers also have dealt with trauma that transcends football, beginning with the scary shooting of rookie wide receiver Ricky Pearsall, their first-round draft pick, during a robbery attempt in San Francisco on Aug. 31. Remarkably, a bullet passed through Pearsall’s chest and exited his body without him sustaining a serious injury, though he was obviously shaken by the incident.

In October, cornerback Charvarius Ward, a second-team All-Pro last season, announced that his daughter, Amani Joy, had died just days before her second birthday. Amani Joy had been born with Down syndrome and a heart defect that required surgery.

On Wednesday I spoke to Ward, who returned to the team to play in the Bills game following an extended absence. I won’t tell you exactly what he said, but just know that — understandably — football does not feel like the most important force in his life right now.

Late last month, Williams’ wife, Sondra, gave birth to a son, Trenton Jr., who was stillborn. Sondra also revealed on Instagram that the couple had lost Trenton’s twin earlier in her pregnancy.

In comparison to that real-life grief, losing football games is trivial. Yet the 49ers, who’ve pulled themselves out of midseason ruts in each of the past three seasons, take a lot of pride in their culture, chemistry and collective ability to plow through adversity. Fighting their way back to the postseason, as unlikely as it might seem, would be a salve for a locker room that will certainly be filled with many new faces in 2025.

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By all accounts, the 49ers are still working hard, sticking together and keeping the faith, but that is becoming increasingly challenging.

“When you don’t win games, the vibe is definitely different,” star tight end George Kittle said. “But the overall camaraderie doesn’t feel different. It’s football. Everybody’s dealing with something. Teams can either put it together or fall apart.”

Added quarterback Brock Purdy, “We’re used to being on a roll — and we’re not. So yeah, it’s a little different.”

Whatever happens the rest of the way, the 49ers will look much different next season. Purdy, the 262nd and last pick in the 2022 draft, will finally be eligible for a lucrative contract extension at season’s end. Though he has not been as impressive as he was in 2023, when he finished fourth in the MVP voting, Purdy will likely get a massive deal that alters the 49ers’ salary-cap structure.

Shanahan essentially decided that Purdy was his quarterback of the future a little less than two years ago, when the then-rookie was thrust into the lineup as a replacement for the injured Jimmy Garoppolo and helped guide the 49ers to the NFC Championship Game. Yet has this season been so jarring that Shanahan, who two years ago tried to lure Tom Brady to San Francisco, might at least ponder the possibility of going after Aaron Rodgers, Kirk Cousins or Matthew Stafford, should any of those veterans become available?

In any scenario, money, age and wear-and-tear will factor into some difficult roster decisions, and many of the organization’s most celebrated players could be cut, traded or allowed to leave via free agency. The 49ers futures of Kittle, wide receiver Deebo Samuel Sr., Juszczyk, Williams, defensive tackle Javon Hargrave, linebacker Dre Greenlaw, Ward, and safety Talanoa Hufanga are very much in question.

For now, the 49ers remain convinced they can regain their swagger and scrap their way to the postseason. In their minds, it was never supposed to be this hard.

On the first Monday night of the regular season, with Aiyuk and Williams back in the fold and Pearsall out of the hospital and on the mend, the Niners presented themselves like defending conference champions, scoring on eight consecutive possessions in a 32-19 victory over Rodgers and the heavily hyped Jets.

In the months that followed, they’ve been a hot mess, struggling to convert red-zone possessions into touchdowns, getting gashed by the run defensively and failing to get consistent stops on third down. Their special teams have been a season-long debacle and they lack a signature win, with only one victory over a team (the Seahawks) that currently has a winning record.

If the 49ers, after consecutive blowout defeats to the Green Bay Packers and Bills, can suddenly sharpen their focus, win the NFC West and make some noise in the playoffs, it would be a shocking development.

“It won’t be a shock to us,” linebacker De’Vondre Campbell Sr. said.

Yes, mathematically, Campbell and his teammates can still end up dancing. Right now, however, they’re having trouble putting one foot in front of the other. Their Bad Vibes Summer has morphed into an Angst-Ridden Autumn — and winter is coming.

(Top photo of Kyle Shanahan: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)