Niners opener good reason for optimism

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Caution is recommended. True, any game that leaves us wondering whether the 49er offense might be as good as the defense — arguably the best in football — would have the Faithful overly optimistic.  

Yet one game is not a season’s make. Even an opening game by a San Francisco franchise that a year earlier began with a thud.

We are reminded often that in sports it isn’t how you start but how (and where) you finish. Still, after falling a couple of games short of the only game that means anything to us spoiled citizens in NorCal, the Super Bowl, a proper beginning is not unappreciated.

And in overwhelming the Pittsburgh Steelers, 30-7, Sunday at Acrisure Stadium, the Niners opened not only properly but impressively. These Steelers are hardly reminiscent of those great “win one for the thumb”  teams of the ‘80s. However, some people were looking for an upset.

What we had was a mismatch. The Niners controlled the ball so much in the first half, 22 minutes of the possible 30, and it had the weary SF players looking for a breather.

“At one point,” said veteran offensive tackle Trent Williams, “you just kind of wanted (the Steelers) to get a first down. There were all those three-and-outs and we kind of needed a break.”

What they got presumably was a chewing out from longtime head coach Mike Tomlin.

While Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan was less displeased he, of course, found fault with San Francisco needing to settle for field goals five times in the first half along with two touchdowns. 

Asked what he thought of his team’s first half,  “The first 28 minutes were good,” said Shanahan. “The last two minutes were really bad.”

So many factors in this one. Nick Bosa, having become the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history( $170 million) played a ton. His stats weren’t awesome, two tackles and a hit but without a doubt, his presence made the other defensive linemen even more formidable. Like Drake Jason who had two sacks.

Running back Christian McCaffrey, a midseason acquisition last year, had 152 yards and a touchdown. He also caught 3 passes for 17 yards. Brandon Aiyuk, who had 8 catches for 129 yards and two touchdowns, seems to have become the receiver the Niners have been seeking. He also can block, helping spring McCaffrey free on one run.

And no less significantly was Brock Purdy, again the quarterback after injury and months-long rehab of his right elbow. In Shanahan’s disciplined offense, Purdy was 19 of 29 for 220 yards and two touchdowns.

A running attack, a passing attack and that strong defense. That’s balance and cause for belief. And for some, boastfulness.

 “I mean, we’re the baddest guys on the planet, and that’s our mindset, honestly,” said safety Tahsaun Gipson, speaking of the 49ers’ defense. “Not to be cocky or disrespectful. So tip our hat off to (the Steelers). Their offense has a lot of great young core guys. They’re going to be good for years to come. It’s just that the 49ers defense is a different brand of football. … And our offense is just — I would hate to play our offense, man.”

Said Bosa: “We just have so many players. It’s fun to watch Aiyuk do his thing. And Purdy shut some haters up. It’s nice to be on a really good team.”

How good will be decided when more than one game has been played, not that the one game didn’t get people excited.

Niners' Shanahan: ‘Didn’t enjoy game by any means’

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“It’s not all about the quarterback,” said Greg Papa, who after his years previously as the Raiders announcer and now the 49ers announcer, well knows, that it is indeed always about the quarterback, especially in San Francisco.

Where from Frankie Albert to John Brodie through Joe Montana and Steve Young, it’s been about the man who takes the snaps and the criticism. As was the case Sunday when the Niners played their first preseason (exhibition) game of 2023 to find a backup for Brock Purdy, who as promised pre-game, didn’t play a down Sunday against the Raiders in Las Vegas (sadly now the home of the Oakland Raiders as it seemingly will be of the Oakland Athletics as well).

If you care about the score, that’s your problem. 

The Raiders won, 34-7, and although the result means little in the grand scheme of things, Niners coach Kyle Shanahan said, “I didn’t enjoy the game by any means.”

Not that there wasn’t some value for Shanahan and the Niners, who now understand (as if they didn’t before) the importance of the quarterback, primarily Trey Lance, to unload the ball before the D-line unloads on him.

As a point of information, the late John Madden, when he coached the Raiders, said if a preseason game was one-sided, he wanted to be the loser, the better to get his team’s attention in practice. 

Lance, who started, was sacked four times for 18 yards, the main reason the Niners didn’t get a first down until the second quarter.

“Trey held the ball too long,” affirmed Shanahan. Perhaps because even if he was the No. 3 overall pick in the 2021 draft, he’s barely played, losing the position because of injuries, which enabled first Jimmy Garoppolo, then Purdy to take over.

During the off-season, the Niners signed another first-round QB, Sam Darnold, who as Lance, was a third overall pick by the Jets who kept him until he was booed out of New York, not unusual for any Jets quarterback not named Joe Namath.

Darnold played the second half and after completing his first four pass attempts, finished 5 of 8. He wasn’t sacked once, but situations and lineups change later in play. It also may change after a few weeks and before the regular season begins. 

Is this the way the Niners view their QBs? Will the rotation be Purdy, Lance, and Darnold? Or will Lance or Darnold be waived or traded? And since he’s returning from that season-closing elbow injury, will Purdy be healthy enough to regain his place?

“We’re always hard on quarterbacks,” reminded Shanahan. 

Then, when it appeared he would gripe about what had happened — or considering the lack of offense, what hadn’t — Shanahan softened his attitude. Lance was being protected, in a manner by an O-line lacking numerous starters.

He paid the price for backups playing their roles. Then again, he paid the price of a sub not being completely comfortable with moving up to the level demanded.

It’s not all about the quarterback until it has to be.

Niners' magical season ends in hopelessness

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What happens when there isn’t any more? When the season that was so magical becomes so prosaic and sad? When the dream so unexpectedly becomes, if not a nightmare, than a feeling of hopelessness?

What happens when everything that was going so right goes so very wrong? When you lose your quarterback, your cool and most significantly the game that was going to put you into the Super Bowl?

Everybody knew the Philadelphia Eagles were a great team. Didn’t they have the best record in the NFC? Weren’t they playing at home Sunday? Maybe if the 49ers aren’t forced to use a quarterback who in effect was fourth string, Philly still dominates as it did, crushing the 49ers, 31-7.

Or maybe not.

You’ve heard the phrase — part reality, part agony — that one plays the cards he or she is dealt. Your starting quarterback gets pummeled minutes into the game? Your usually disciplined defense starts making one penalty after another? The officials seem biased? (Which they are not).

Kismet, baby. Fate. You do the best you can.

Unfortunately for the Niners, down to a quarterback who virtually had been found in the wilderness, 36-year-old Josh Johnson, getting called for penalties after what might have been a game-deciding sequence, the best wasn’t good enough.

And so it is done, this 2022 season, when a kid who was known as Mr. Irrelevant, quarterback Brock Purdy, had helped win a dozen games in succession, and in the process won plaudits and fame.

It was being billed as a fairy tale, the guy taken at the bottom of the draft, along with a defense that was on top of the league stats, bringing a title to the City by the Bay. But as we learned as kids, not all fairy tales have a happy ending.

And yet, this topsy-turvy Niner season has just concluded — the 3-4 start, the injury to the QB who was the starter; the injury to the steadfast loyal kid who replaced him, Jimmy Garoppolo; then on Sunday the injury to the kid who replaced Jimmy G, the surprisingly skilled Purdy.

If you’re a Niners fan, even a fan of pro football, do you cling only to the results of the final game, the end, or are you able to find at least a small measure of satisfaction in that big picture, a long winning streak and, after yet another victory over the Dallas Cowboys, a place in the conference title game?

Donte Whitner, a onetime defensive back, said in so many words that the only way to judge success is whether a team wins the Super Bowl. Or doesn’t win the Super Bowl.

That’s a bit shortsighted. The Niners didn’t even advance to the Super Bowl, but look at what was accomplished. The man at the most important position, the quarterback, gets knocked out of the game so quickly. It is not Brock Purdy’s fault or coach Kyle Shanahan’s fault.

“I wish we had a little better opportunity,” said Shanahan, understandably emotional.

If wishes were horses … you know the saying. The only place this Niners team will be riding is off into the sunset.

A wild win for Niners in wild card

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This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Or then, perusing history, maybe it was. After all, the words “wild card” can be interpreted any way you decide.

And the prevailing wisdom about the 49ers was that their game against Seattle wouldn’t be as wild as it turned out to be.

The Niners had defeated the Seahawks in both regular-season games this fall and winter, but as has been pointed out quite accurately, it’s difficult to beat another team three in a row in the NFL.

Unless they are mismatched. Which, in a second half that began with the heavily favored Niners trailing by a point, ultimately turned out to be the situation.

San Francisco, with its top-ranked defense taking control as it has so often, scored 25 points before the Seahawks got a touchdown, with three minutes remaining, that didn’t matter.

So the 49ers won 41-23 on Saturday and are into the next round of the playoffs, for a game that will be played, as was this wildest of cards, at Levi’s Stadium against a yet undetermined opponent.

And most likely, not in the rain that has been punishing the Bay Area and returned in the third quarter, as seemingly did the Niners.

Yes, for those of a certain age, it brings back memories of 1981, when the weather was inclement and the results were inspiring, San Francisco beating the New York Giants on a Candlestick Park field barely playable — remember the sod squad? — and then on the Montana-to-Clark pass taking down the Cowboys and going to the Super Bowl.

Where this journey concludes is unpredictable, but at least the Niners are still a presence, and head coach Kyle Shanahan is still a happy individual — after being less happy at two quarters into the Seattle game.

The Niners were doing virtually everything they needed to do in the first half, other than getting people into the end zone, a rather significant problem.

“You’ve got to score points,” said Shanahan, and then someone reminded him the Niners gained more yards in this game, 505, than in any this season.

“We only had 13 points until late in the first half,” said the coach.

Rookie quarterback Brock Purdy threw four touchdown passes. Not quite a rookie after playing six games — and winning every one — he was under pressure early. Sure, he was unbeaten and had performed remarkably for a man taken last in the draft (actually for anyone taken anywhere in the draft). But this was his first postseason game. Ever.

Under pressure from a pass rush carefully crafted by Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, Purdy, a righthander, kept running to his left before throwing an incompletion.

Asked if he thought Purdy was nervous, Shanahan said, “No, the deficit made me nervous. I appreciate what he’s doing. I was wishing he could have had a couple of touchdowns.”

They got one quickly after Niners defensive lineman Charles Omenihu knocked the football loose from Seattle QB Geno Smith. The 49ers recovered at their own 19 with some three minutes left in the third quarter. That did it for the Seahawks.

“The ball hit the ground,” said Shanahan. “I saw it bouncing and kept thinking, ‘Grab it.’ He scooped it up.”

And San Francisco was about to scoop up a win that shouldn’t have been as difficult as it became.

Niners go back to who they are

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The man on ESPN sounded as baffled as he was impressed: “They did not look like this last week.” He meant the 49ers, of course,

And to that observation we add, nor any week in the last year.

The Niners had gone 390 days since a win at Levi’s Stadium, their home. Then they played their patsies, the Los Angeles Rams.

We modify the cliché — let’s make it “on any given Monday.” On this Monday, the 49ers gave it to the Rams, winning 31-10, ending a streak of eight straight losses at Levi’s and continuing a streak of wins over the Rams, now six. 

There was a lot in print and on TV the past few days about the Rams, Hollywood’s team if you will, mostly for acquiring that receiver with the flair, flash and catchy name, Odell Beckham Jr., a.k.a. OBJ (yes, too many initials, but that’s our world). Headline stuff. OBJ, we were told, was the final piece in the puzzle, the guy who was going to get the Rams to the coming Super Bowl — which conveniently will be played at the Rams’ $5 billion SoFi Stadium.

OBJ may indeed help get the Rams to the NFL Championship, but he couldn’t do much about getting L.A. out of the pit in which he and the Rams found themselves in against San Francisco.

There are 60 minutes in a game. On Monday night, the Niners had the ball 39 minutes 3 seconds of those 60.

Hang on to the ball, pick off a couple of Rams passes (both by Jimmy Ward, one of which was returned for a touchdown, the infamous pick six) and you can’t lose.

“They went back to who they are,” said Louis Riddick, who analyzes for NBC Sports Bay Area.

Or who they were.

Maybe you missed the grumbling from fans and media because of the attention to OBJ — hard to ignore ESPN — but there was great disenchantment with the 49ers, beginning with head coach Kyle Shanahan.

A team that had been considered a probability for the postseason was 2-4 and at the bottom of NFC West.

And besides that, the Niners looked so awful against Arizona a week ago, one supporter emailed that he switched channels to some music program.

What to do? The old cure.

“We went back to basics,” said quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. Meaning plays that would succeed. Taking opportunities not chances.

Garoppolo, who gets his share of criticism, was effective, completing his first 12 passes and 15 of 19. When Deebo Samuel wasn’t catching the ball, he was running with it.

The Niners, perhaps as much in frustration as determination, pounded away. Woody Hayes, he of the three yards and a cloud of dust, would have been overjoyed.

It isn’t too much of a reach to say Shanahan was.

The Niners had 156 yards rushing, the Rams 52. Passing? The Rams had 226 to San Francisco’s 179. OBJ had two receptions for 18 yards.

You might say the Niners were fighting to keep their jobs.  What Shanahan would say was, “The whole team has to play that way, offense, defense, special teams.”

The game plan was simple — and brilliant. Keep the ball and keep the opponent off balance.

“The Rams are a real good team,” said Shanahan, “but we were excited to play them.” Given history, it’s easy to understand why.

“I think we took a lot of things personally,” said Shanahan. “We were very aware. We wanted to make the game as physical as possible. But our physical guys also have some skill sets.”

They can maneuver. They can think. They also can grasp the disappointment — disgust, even — engendered by going winless game after game on their home turf.

“There are no secrets to what we did,” said Garoppolo. “We were just locked in.”

After figuratively being locked out for 390 days.

Niners can’t pass the eye test — or the football

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You’ve heard the term in advertising: Eye test. Never mind the numbers or opinion of others. Do you like what you see? If you don’t, what else do you need to know?

The 49ers these days can’t pass the eye test. (That at times they can’t pass the football either is part of the problem.)

The Niners don’t look good. Which is being kind.

If you stayed with the Niners on Sunday as they failed to stay with the Arizona Cardinals, you can understand why head coach Kyle Shanahan said he was disappointed. He also said a lot more after the 31-17 loss at Levi’s Stadium.

He told us the Niners didn’t tackle well. Couldn’t stop the run. Didn’t stop the screen pass.

But that was very clear in the eye test.

San Francisco was outplayed from start to finish, giving away the ball on two fumbles and an interception; giving away big chunks of yardage on first downs.

What’s happened to a team many thought would be a contender for the Super Bowl but now is 3-5 and hasn’t won a home game since last season is a legitimate question.

Without easy answers. Maybe without answers of any kind.

Something is very wrong, and it isn’t necessarily quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo or Shanahan or the defense or the offensive line, but undeniably all are involved. In other words, bringing in Trey Lance isn’t going to make things better quickly.

The factors that combined to get the Niners to the Super Bowl only a couple of years ago, the ones that enable a team to succeed, controlling the ball, preventing the opponent from doing the same, have vanished like the thoughts of another championship.

Eye test: The Cardinal team on the field Sunday lacked Kyler Murray, the quarterback who runs like a halfback, wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins and all-pro defensive end J.J. Watt.

Obviously, that didn’t matter, because the Niner team on the field lacked willpower.

Every team has downers. Nobody wins them all, and on Sunday the Rams, arguably the best team in the NFL and the Niners’ next opponent, were defeated at home by the Tennessee Titans.

Yet, the 49ers were sad reminders of what used to be, a franchise that over the years may have struggled but at least had a chance to win.

The Niners, down 17-0 all so quickly, never had a chance in this one, and if Shanahan didn’t say that directly he very much implied it.

Kyle is perceptive enough to understand that if he can see what was going on, so could those at the stadium or watching on TV.

Coaches or baseball managers brought in by organizations where winning isn’t so much expected as demanded inevitably say it’s the city’s team and they’re merely caretakers.

It’s obvious in this disappointing season of 2021, to borrow from Kyle Shanahan, that nobody is taking care of a football team with a proud past.

“We couldn’t stop the run,” said Shanahan. “All those free yards. We couldn’t keep them from less than five yards on first down. Couldn’t stop the screen passes. We’ve got to make those plays..

“And on offense we dropped the ball. We fumbled, then we fumbled again.”

Tight end George Kittle, out the past few weeks, returned and after a reception was one of the fumblers. Brandon Aiyuk was the other.

The interception, of course, came from Garoppolo, trailing late when everybody — including the Cardinals — knew the Niners had to pass.

There’s an axiom in sports that it takes a long while to become a champion, but you regress to failure all too quickly.

The 49ers lead the league in turnover differential, their negative total growing by three against the Cardinals.

“I think this year with turnovers,” conceded pass rusher Nick Bosa, ”we’re not getting them, and we’re giving them up too much. That’s a big sign of a losing team. And that’s what we are right now.”

As we could see all too well.

Jets' pick of Darnold should make 49ers wary of a QB

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The safest quarterback prospect in the draft. That was the observation in a New York daily about Sam Darnold, on the day he was taken by the Jets in April 2018. “The Darnold era has begun,” said the story.

That it may end prematurely is a reminder and a warning.

The Jets traded up in that draft to get the No. 3 overall selection, to get the man they wanted — “the arm, the legs and temperament to be a franchise quarterback.”

Three years later, amid much glee and explanation, it is the San Francisco 49ers who have traded up to the No. 3 overall selection to get, well, we learn in April, but presumably a quarterback. Depending on who is available, it might be Zach Wilson of BYU, Justin Fields of Ohio State, Trey Lance of North Dakota State or Mac Jones of Alabama.

The chosen individual — dare we designate him as a “franchise quarterback”? — will be expected to lead the Niners to the Super Bowl. Which, two seasons past, Jimmy Garoppolo did. That was so long ago, and in the NFL, there’s nothing constant except change.

Other than Tom Brady, of course, and he was a sixth-round pick and at age 43 still brilliant. So much for probability.

If nothing else, and when the situation involves the 49ers there’s always something else, the trade for that No. 3 overall selection has put the team back in the Bay Area headlines, in front of the Warriors and, even though the season is about to begin, in front of baseball.

Where, with all the speculation about who will be their pick and probably their star, the Niners will stay for months, if not forever. 

The new guy will be labeled the “next Joe Montana,” naturally because he was not only the franchise QB but through adulation dubbed “St. Joe.”

But what if he doesn’t become a champion, much less another sporting saint? There are no guarantees.

Darnold has been less than hoped for. Talk continues that he might be traded. It’s been awhile since Ryan Leaf was the No. 2 overall pick and maybe the No. 1 overall bust. And only weeks ago, the Rams gave up on Jared Goff, No. 1 overall in 2016, and traded him to the Detroit Lions for Matthew Stafford.

Owners are impatient, not to mention oil-sheik wealthy. This makes general managers impatient. This makes coaches impatient. This makes players uncomfortable. Just don’t look over your shoulder — unless you’re about to be sacked.

The Niners’ GM John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan were looking ahead after looking around. All those other teams, excluding Tampa Bay and Brady, had young first-round picks at QB: Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Goff.  

Garoppolo is out again? Have to move. Now.

“You hope to be competing, to get into the playoffs every single year, which is the ultimate goal,” said Shanahan, Niners coach for a fifth season.

“The more you look at this league. especially our four years here, it’s hard to succeed when your starting quarterback doesn’t stay healthy,” emphasized Shanahan. “He’s played at a very high level when he’s played.”

When he hasn’t played, the idea to develop a replacement for Jimmy G. became a necessity. And surely that replacement had to be developed from a prospect who will be a high pick in the coming draft.

When you trade away first-round choices, you’re thinking less of what you never had than what you will have, a player on the roster. How can you lose what you never had? 

The Niners, the way the team was built, seemingly believed they lost games they should have won. A quarterback could change that. If he’s not the wrong one.

For the Niners, a most unusual season

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By Art Spander

So similar. And so different. The final game, and the 49ers had the lead going into the final quarter.

They couldn’t hold it a year ago in the Super Bowl, which was notably painful. Or on Sunday, in what ended a season that was as notably unusual, if only a trifle less painful.

A season with the loss of so many key players and, in a day or two, probably a key coach.

A season when a seemingly unstoppable virus, Covid-19, forced the Niners to abandon their training complex in Santa Clara, and forced the players and coaches to leave their homes and families.

A season that created as many questions — the essential one, who will be the starting quarterback in 2021? — as answers.

A season that, with a concluding 26-23 defeat by the Seattle Seahawks at State Farm Stadium near Phoenix, was both distressing, because it ended with a record of 6-10, and encouraging, because players said they gained new respect for teammates.

For the fans, the incidentals become, well, incidental. To them, it’s all about results, and if the Niners had to be transplanted, lock, stock and game plans, from Silicon Valley to the Valley of the Sun for more than a month, well, hey, it isn’t as if they were living in tents.

But sport, like so much in life, is a matter of routine. These weren’t college kids off for a fall break. They were grown men with wives and children and mortgages.

They knew there would be discipline. They knew there would be broken bones and twisted ankles. What they didn’t know until November was they would banned from practicing or playing where the Niners are headquartered — and forced to flee.

It would have been easier to say, this isn’t our year — which it wasn’t — yet in the final game, with a third-string quarterback (C.J. Beathard) with nothing at stake except pride, with thoughts that within minutes they’d be on a flight home, the Niners had a 16-6 lead in the fourth quarter over the playoff-bound Seahawks.

That should count for something, and it counted considerably with head coach Kyle Shanahan.

“I was real proud of the guys today,” Shanahan said. “I thought those guys competed their asses off in all aspects. I told them to hold their heads high. I didn’t think it was a moral victory or anything because I feel we should have won the game.” 

Almost certainly Shanahan and the Niners will lose coordinator Robert Saleh, who designed the defense that held the Seahawks to only two field goals through the first three quarters. “I hope everyone is not very smart and doesn’t hire him,” quipped Shanahan.

The coach wouldn’t offer a comment about the quarterback situation, although he has said as of now Jimmy Garoppolo would be back in charge. Garoppolo only made six games because of an injury. He was replaced by Nick Mullens, who then was hurt himself and replaced by Beathard.

There basically was no replacement for Nick Bosa, the 2019 defensive rookie of the year, who tore up a knee (ACL) in the Niners’ second game of the season. The same thing happened in the same game to another defensive line standout, Solomon Thomas.

Every subsequent game, there would be a graphic on TV showing how many different 49ers were out at one time or another, running backs, quarterbacks, defensive backs — you name them.

“I’m very happy,” said Shanahan, when asked if the end brought relief, if not a championship. “Very excited. It’s the first time I’ve packed two days in advance for anything … Being stuck in the hotel for over 30 days, it does wear on you a little bit. Not just me. The players. The cooks. The equipment guys. Everybody involved with us is ready to get back home.”

And, he pointed out, working for improvement.

“Once we were eliminated from the playoffs, we were ready to move on a little bit and get to next year. But we had to finish it.”

Before it finished them.

Niners’ Trent Williams: ‘Without the ball, it’s impossible to win’

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By Art Spander

They tell us good teams find a way to win. This season, the 49ers are finding ways to lose. Therefore, the Niners must not be a very good football team. But you didn’t need any deductive reasoning to know that.

Not after the last two games, one against the Buffalo Bills when they were ineffective on defense, the other on Sunday against the Washington Football Team, when they were, well, terrible on offense.

Terrible, not that they didn’t run or pass — the Niners had 344 yards total to 193 for Washington. Terrible that a pass by Nick Mullens was intercepted and run back 76 yards for a touchdown — the infamous “pick six” — and a fumble by Mullens when he was sacked was returned 47 yards for a touchdown.

Small wonder, then, in their second straight Covid-19-forced home away from home, State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., the Niners were defeated, 23-15, by a team only slightly less worse than they have become. But one that, unlike San Francisco, is going to the playoffs.

Three turnovers Sunday, the two that proved destructive and another lost fumble. There have been a ton of them since Mullens replaced the injured Jimmy Garoppolo — some Mullens’ fault, some not — and they are a primary reason the Niners are 5-8 in a season going nowhere.

As Trent Williams, the offensive tackle who joined the Niners this season after years in Washington, pointed out, “The ball is everything. Without the ball, it’s impossible to win.”

Cycles. We go through them. So do teams. When things are going fine, well, there are lyrics to remind us that all too soon they won’t go well. “Riding high in April,” Frank Sinatra sang, “shot down in May.”

Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. That’s Murphy’s Law. A season after so much went right, until the second half of the Super Bowl, the Niners have been beset by injuries, errors and bad breaks. That’s a blend guaranteed to ruin the hopes of any sporting franchise.

The Niners have been patching and matching and hanging on. Or had been. Was it appropriate that on the first offensive play of the game Sunday, receiver Deebo Samuel reinjured his hamstring and was finished?

Whatever, if you don’t lose fumbles and throw interceptions, you might have a chance.

Last year when he was at Ohio State, Chase Young was making the case why he should be the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s NFL draft. That turned out to be Joe Burrow, the quarterback from LSU. Young went second, to Washington. His claim to be first has some validity.

He tore through the Niners in the second quarter (Williams was out of the game temporarily), knocked the ball from Mullens’ hand and ran it the 47 yards for the score that put Washington in front, 13-7.

That came at the end of the first half. The hit may have been intimidating. On the final play of the third quarter, Mullens was intercepted by Kamren Curl and run back 76 yards for a touchdown.

“We had a bad day,” said Niners coach Kyle Shanahan. “We missed a few opportunities early on offense. You don’t keep getting those again; Nick missed a few open throws. We struggled with some big penalties, I thought we had more drops than we usually have.

“Regardless we could have found a way, if it weren’t for the turnovers.”

Shanahan said after Mullens’ big interception, he thought about replacing him with C.J. Beathard. But as Beathard warmed up, Mullens passed to Kyle Juszczyk for a touchdown.

Mullens said on the fateful pick he was trying to find an outlet.

“You have to protect the ball,” Mullens agreed. “You can’t make that mistake. That changed the game.”

Nothing, unfortunately, is going to change the Niners’ record. “I expect us to play better than we did Sunday,” Shanahan said.

But in this season, expectations are thrown or fumbled away.

For Niners, another opening — another backpack question

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By Art Spander

MIAMI — Of course there was a question about the backpack. But by Deion Sanders.

Who better to exploit the silliness and salesmanship of the Super Bowl’s media function — relabled Opening Night — than a man who played in the game and now works for the NFL Network, Deion Sanders, old Prime Time himself?

Either Deion has been out of touch or the guys behind the telecast goaded him into asking Kyle Shanahan about the incident, but there was Deion standing next to Shanahan. Network types get individual access, which ordinary journalists do not.

So there is Sanders, who helped the 49ers win Super Bowl XXIX, right where No. LIV will be played Sunday — it’s now called Hard Rock Stadium, formerly Joe Robbie Stadium.

Let’s just say Deion was more impressive with a football in his hands than a microphone. But that doesn’t seem to matter.

Opening Night (sounds like an opera, not a media show) on Monday was at Marlins Park, the baseball stadium, appropriate perhaps because the one that was held three years ago, prior to Super Bowl LI, was at Minute Maid Park, where the Astros play home games.

Shanahan was offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons, who would blow a big lead and lose to New England. But more significantly everyone knew he was about to be named the Niners' new coach.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but I came late, put down my backpack with my laptop and joined the group around Shanahan. Then, I picked up my backpack and went to write. Only, when someone tracked me down, it wasn’t my backpack, it was Shanahan’s.

Hey, it was dark and both packs were green. Both of us ended up with the proper backpacks. We’re three years on. But Shanahan has returned to a Super Bowl.

After Shanahan on Monday night tells Sanders there will be a different approach to this Super Bowl than the one three years ago, Deion casually mentions the backpack.

“I was pretty upset,” said Shanahan. “One minute I have it, the next minute it’s gone.” He wasn’t worried about the Patriots learning his game plan — “That was on an iPad and could be deleted” — but about the $15,000 in tickets he had acquired an hour earlier.

I never opened the pack. But I opened a wound. The story became huge. It’s still large. When half-jokingly a week ago, I asked Shanahan if for nostalgia’s sake he would bring the backpack to this Super Bowl, he said, “If I do, I’m going to keep it locked up to my arm so you can’t get it.”

Sanders, as if he had been on the moon, asked, “Wasn’t there an incident with a backpack? “

“Someone picked it up,” said the coach, cleverly using no names.

The issue now is not the backpack but quarterbacks and running backs. Can the Niners move the ball with the effectiveness they did against Green Bay in the NFC Championship game? San Francisco did it almost entirely on the ground.

Pack that up.

Shanahan, the fan, knows how uplifting a win can be

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By Art Spander

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — It was a television reporter who asked Kyle Shanahan, the 49ers coach, the question nobody who regularly covers the team would have asked, to wit:

Did Shanahan get a sense of regional uplifting that a win such as the one over the Vikings can do for the Bay Area?

There are football people who would have dismissed the idea out of hand, telling us their job is about what happens on the field, not in the stands. But that’s not Shanahan.

“That stuff does it for me too,” Shanahan said Monday at Niners headquarters, responding to the question. “Not just as a coach, but as a fan. I love sport.

“When I watched the Warriors do good here for the two years I was here prior to this year, that uplifts me, and I love what sports does for people.”

What the 49ers have done this season is call down some recent echoes. They are in the NFC Championship game Sunday night against Green Bay at Levi’s Stadium. Suddenly, it’s the 1980s once again.

This isn’t Charlotte where, when a major golf tournament, the PGA Championship, was played there, a local reporter asked the golfers what they thought of the city. Not the course, the city, the restaurants, the stores.

We know what people think of San Francisco, of Oakland, of San Jose. Who cares if the Niners play in Santa Clara? Not TV, which during games offers shots of the Bay Bridge, when it isn’t showing us the Golden Gate.

Kyle Shanahan has been around and part of winners: offensive coordinator on the Falcons, who went to the Super Bowl three years ago; an intern with his dad’s Broncos, Super Bowl champions in 1997 and 1998.

“Anytime you have a team that has a chance to be in the situation we’re in,” Kyle Shanahan said, “where the Warriors have been a lot, sports are great. It gives everyone a break from stuff. You always want to support your home team, and I’m glad we’re giving something to be proud of this year.”

True, Northern Cal has had its share of titles, every pro team other than the Sharks taking a championship. When the Niners finally won, in the 1981 season, it was, dare we use the word, a virtual earthquake — the team that was here first, after seasons of disappointment, coming in first last.

The Bay Area, California, the entire west, had only college sports and minor league baseball until 1946. Then the Cleveland Rams moved to Los Angeles. Then the 49ers were formed in San Francisco.

No Giants until 1958. No Raiders until 1960. No Warriors until 1962. No A’s until 1968. No Sharks until 1991 (although the California Golden Seals were around from 1967-76).

The Niners were the original, the attraction and, for 35 years without any sort of playoff win, eternal frustration. So when Dwight Clark made “The Catch” in January 1982 against Dallas (after a divisional victory over the New York Giants), the elation was understandable. And, for a long while, unstoppable.

Bill Walsh was the coach who broke the spell. “You can stop writing we can’t win the big one,” he told me maybe an hour after Clark’s catch. Since then, there have been numerous big ones.

Another is Sunday. Will this be a return to greatness, to the Super Bowl, a game that in the 1980s and early ‘90s almost seemed part of the Niners’ regular schedule? Or will this be only a letdown?

In the glory years, the Niners won their championships while playing at deteriorating Candlestick Park — then-owner Eddie DeBartolo called the stadium “a dump.” But it was full and loud. But now the home games, as this coming Sunday's game will be, are at Levi’s, which was mostly empty and very quiet. Until last weekend.

“The fan noise,” said Shanahan of the last game, “is as big of a difference as probably our team is. They’ve gotten a lot louder as we’ve gotten better. It was just unbelievable Saturday.

“All I saw in the stands were red jerseys. It gave us a special feeling.”   

Just as winning teams invariably give their communities.

 

 

 

 

 

Niners say they came close, but Bears were better team

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   SANTA CLARA, Calif.—They’re better than they were a month ago, which makes the 49ers feel somewhat satisfied. But they’re not better than the Chicago Bears. Oh maybe, as the echoes from the Niners locker room advised, they were close and they could have won, could have beaten the Bears.

  You always hear that refrain when the underdog, the team with the losing record, puts up a fight—and that doesn’t mean the literal one that erupted on the Bears sideline in the fourth quarter—and makes a game of it.

  Which is what the Niners did, but the Bears (11-4 and NFC North champions) made a win of it, 14-9, to nobody’s surprise. 

  Yes, the Niners, as they told us, had chances, including after they recovered a Chicago fumble with 1:52 left, the  second takeaway of the game for a Niners team that hadn’t had a single one in two months, However, they lost the ball on downs.

  It these Bears aren’t monsters of the NFL, much less of the Midway (circa 1940s) or ready to shuffle to a Super Bowl victory as the 1985 team, they’re strong enough, particularly on defense.

  “They’ve got a very good front four, probably the best in the league,” Niners coach Kyle Shanahan said of the Bears. “Very good inside rushers.”

  A major part of that defense is linebacker Khalil Mack, stupidly traded to Chicago by the Oakland Raiders just before the start of the season. It he isn’t the best in the league, he’s no worse than second. He’s the type of player who makes everyone else on his defense better—and that defense was effective anyway.

 So, the 49ers could only get 279 yards offense, all but 54 passing. Nick Mullens, the Niners quarterback, threw 38 times. He did complete 22 for 241 yards but none for touchdowns—and one for an interception.
‘It was more a function of what we’re going against,” Shanahan said of the imbalanced run-pass ratio. “You would love to just run every play, to reverse that pass rush and everything. But the only thing they do better than stopping the pass is stopping the run . . . It’s tough.

  “You get a gut feeling in what they’re doing .I definitely thought throwing the ball gave us the best chance to win.”

 For a while, after three first-half field goals by Robbie Gould (an ex-Bear) the Niners had a 9-7 lead. But they lost opportunities to get touchdowns.

Early in the third period, Chicago looking very much the playoff team it is, drove 90 yards in 12 plays, over 7 minutes 43 seconds, in effect  half the entire period. In the sequence quarterback Mitch Trubisky completed eight consecutive passes (he reached 10 in a row after the TD).

  That’s what winning teams do, take the ball and stuff it and throw it successfully, in the less than half-filled stands at Levi’s Stadium the chant resounded, “Let’s go Bears.” Presumably they didn’t mean Cal, up the road in Berkeley.

 What Niners cornerback Richard Sherman meant when he threw a one-two punch during a sideline melee with 5:39 to play was, “Don’t try to push us around.”  He was ejected as were two Bears receivers. That didn’t have an effect on the game, except to drag out what because of penalties and reviews seemed endless.

  Trubisky was tackled on the sideline. “It got chippy,” said Sherman, acting as the overseer. “I’m not going to let our guys get pushed around. There was a lot of pushing and shoving. I couldn’t let the whole sideline go against one of my teammates. You have to go in there regardless of the circumstances.”

  He went in and subsequently got thrown out, but as tight end George Kittle pointed out that sort of support builds unity for a 4-11 team which has one game left, next Sunday against the Rams in Los Angeles.

  “We’ve got guys who are aggressive,” said Shanahan. “You make a lot of plays being aggressive. “That’s (Chicago) a real good team. I was happy and proud of how hard of how our guys fought in all three phases.

  “I was hoping we would finish this year with a winning record a home (They were 4-4), so that was disappointing.”

  Defeat invariably is, even against a better team.

After finally beating Seahawks, Shanahan doesn’t have to answer

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   SANTA CLARA, Calif.—This was as much a statement as it was game, a statement in which the San Francisco 49ers proved they had resilience as well as talent, a statement which told us the Niners can make plays against the team that had made them look bad.

  A statement that had gone unspoken but in effect was shouted loudly when head coach Kyle Shanahan,  having escaped the routine of how it feels never to win against Seattle-- a streak of 10 games which included three of his predecessors—said “I hated having to answer those questions.”

  And now, after the Niners, 26-23, victory over the Seahawks Sunday in the rain at Levi’s Stadium, the winning points coming with 3:06 left in overtime on Robbie Gould’s fourth field goal of the game, this from 36 yards, he won’t be required to answer.

  Two weeks ago, in Seattle, the Seahawks crushed the 49ers, 43-16.

“I took it personally,” said 49ers defensive tackle DeForest Buckner. “They flat out embarrassed us.”

  In a way, they did more than that. They made us question whether this Shanahan thing was going to work. Sure he only was in his second year. Sure he and the Niners had had lost their starting quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo, in the third game of the season. But 43-16? Please.

  What you find out in sports, in life, is how people, how teams, individuals respond to adversity. What we found out about the Niners, now 4-10, is they have both the skills and the toughness to show they are a real NFL franchise.

  The way things fell apart in Seattle, they came together in Santa Clara. Richie James Jr. returned a kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown, the Niners first “he could go all the way” in years. Buckner got two sacks against the Seahawks elusive quarterback, Russell Wilson. Nick Mullens, once more at quarterback, was efficient—that’s the yardstick of a QB—completing 20 of 29 for 275 yards and a touchdown.

   The Seahawks, 8-6, and still strong for the playoffs, made the mistakes, called for penalties 14 times, many of those negating big runs, for 148 yards.  The 49ers, the underdogs, the team trying to avoid having the worst record in pro football, kept their poise.

  “This was a really clear game,” said Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, the onetime Niners assistant and USC head coach, “and we just hurt ourselves so much with this penalty thing that it took our chances away.

 “We ran the football. We converted on third down, held them on third down, (had) time of possession. So many things we were plus in—the turnover ratio. We really, uncharacteristically, had 148 yards in penalties, 10 (penalties) in the second half, which is crazy. I don’t know how that could happen.”

  The Niners don’t care how it happened. They only cared that for the first time since 2013, they were not on the short end when facing Seattle.

  “It means a ton,” said Richard Sherman. He’s the cornerback who came to the Niners this year after seven years with the Seahawks, so he knows both sides now.

   “It means more that the guys showed up the way they did. Honestly it means a lot beating Seattle for me . . . Those guys played their hearts out. We’ve got an incredibly young team, three rookie receivers, a second-year quarterback. They stepped up to the moment.”

  Shanahan was no less emphatic.

  “Not all of us have been here since 2013,” said the coach, “but a lot of us have been here last year. We were all definitely here two weeks ago. It’s a division rival. We also were very sick of the way we lost two weeks ago.”

   Wilson, the Seattle quarterback, did complete 23 of 31 for 237 yards and two touchdowns. “I thought they played really well today,” he said of the 49ers. “We played well. It really came down to some penalties here and there.”

  Penalties Seattle made, maybe because it couldn’t handle Buckner and the Niners defense.

“Getting to double-digit sacks definitely is gratifying,” said Buckner. “I’d like to thank my teammates. It’s not one guy. It’s the whole unit up front rushing as a team. I’m proud of my teammates.”

  He has a right to be.

Niners lose ball and game to the only team that hadn’t won

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By Art Spander

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The clues were as obvious as the footballs bouncing on the grass — and picked up by the opposition. And, in one case, run back for a touchdown.

If you lose the ball, which the 49ers did, then you lose the game. Which the 49ers also did.

Do turnovers make bad teams? Or do bad teams make turnovers? This is not so much a conundrum as a gentle way of saying that, right now, the San Francisco 49ers are a mess. They were beaten by the only team in the NFL that until Sunday had beaten no one else.

But if you give away the ball five times, twice on interceptions and thrice on fumbles, you’re going to lose to anyone and everyone, so it’s no surprise that the Niners were stopped, 28-18, by the Arizona Cardinals and that both Arizona the Niners are 1-4.

The surprise is that until the end, San Francisco was in the game, in a manner of speaking. And another surprise will be if the 49ers can win one of their next two games, Monday night at Green Bay and then a week from Sunday back here at Levi’s Stadium against the overwhelming Los Angeles Rams.

“We doubled their time of possession,” said 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan — 40 minutes, 12 seconds to a virtual 20 minutes. “Our defense played its tail off. You look at a lot of things, it’s hard to find out how we lose this game. Then it’s very easy: turnovers.”

Especially one of them, a 23-yard fumble return by Cardinals linebacker Josh Byrnes, who picked up the ball after Niners quarterback C.J. Beathard was sacked and lost it on his own 33. The ball bounced, Byrnes grabbed it, and, yikes, with 4:41 to play Arizona grabbed a 21-12 lead — and the game.

Asked how many of the turnovers could be blamed on Beathard, the second-year quarterback who is filling in for the injured Jimmy Garoppolo, Shanahan did his best not to throw Beathard under the bus. He merely tossed him under one of those motorized scooters.

“I mean he’s the quarterback,” said the coach. “It’s his responsibility to protect the ball. But 10 other guys should make it easier on him. Usually fumbles are hard to pin on the quarterback.”

The Niners lost several starters, including halfback Matt Breida, a strong blocker as well as a fine runner. But pro football is a game of injuries, and the slogan is “Next man up.” Every player in the locker room is capable, or he wouldn’t be there.

“You can’t win ballgames turning the ball over five times,” Beathard confirmed. “I feel like we played well in all the other aspects except turnovers. Just got to take better care of the ball.”

Beathard didn’t quite know what happened when he was sacked by Byrnes, and the ball was returned for a score.

“I was trying to get the ball to (wide receiver) Trent Taylor,” said Beathard, “and he was getting held. I decided to wait a little bit. The guy hit the ball out of my hands and that was it. Just got to get the ball out quicker.”

Maybe Beathard is what we see. Surely the Niners would have thought more of him or they wouldn’t have signed Garoppolo, who was seen as a savior. Bur the savior is done until next year after knee surgery, so for better or worse it’s Beathard’s baby.

And Shanahan’s worry. After an 0-9 start last year as a rookie coach, Shanahan, and the Niners, finished with five straight wins. Yes, Garoppolo was in charge. Now he’s not.

“Last year it was frustrating to start that way,” said Shanahan, answering a question. “And we don’t like to lose. We put a lot of work into this. Every Sunday we come out confident, and we expect to win. We’ve come up short a number of times.

“I told our team we’d love to be 5-0 right now, and we’re not. We know why we lose each game. We fought hard, but when you have five turnovers it’s borderline impossible.”

The word borderline is not applicable. It’s simply impossible. As the Niners proved.

 

Niners: 'Wait 'til next year' is a legitimate thought

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By Art Spander

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — He’s a Harvard guy, so he has to be smart, right? Which Kyle Juszczyk is. As well as tough. The man is a starting fullback in the NFL. No softies allowed there. He can smack you and take a smack. He also can take a stand.

So on this Christmas Eve, with shouts of joy filling the 49ers locker room at Levi’s Stadium, it made sense to question Juszczyk about what went on and why.

Sure, we knew the suddenly resurgent Niners beat the best defensive team in the league, Jacksonville, 44-33. But what about the Jaguars yelling at each other on the sidelines and taking physical shots against San Francisco on the field?

What about the Jags being called for 12 penalties for 99 yards?

“I don’t think they were used to a team moving the ball against them like we did,” said Juszczyk, who probably needs a Harvard degree just to spell his name. 

“Things got very chippy. They’re one of the top teams in the league. And for us to come out there and win the way we did certainly may have frustrated them. But it gives us something on which to build for next season.”

Not that this season is quite finished, even for the Niners. The Jags (10-5) are going to the playoffs. The 49ers, with four straight win and a 5-10 record — remember, they opened the schedule by losing their first nine in a row — will close out next Sunday against the Rams at Los Angeles.

And they probably wish it was all just beginning, not coming to a close, now that they have their quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo, undefeated in four games as a starter, now that they have their footing and now that they have their confidence.

“Yes,” said Juszczyk, “I wish we had a few more games, but we’re not going to let that take away from what we’re doing now.”

What they’ve been doing, with Garoppolo using his own agility and athletic skill (those throws across his body), with the offense utilizing the complex offense of first-year head coach Kyle Shanahan, with the defense coming up with key stops and interceptions, is teasing us with reminders of The Dynasty. Of Joe Montana and Bill Walsh and Ronnie Lott.

Don’t get too excited yet, although halfback Carlos Hyde certainly did, his hopes running away as he and Matt Breida ran away through a Jaguar defense set to stop Garoppolo’s passing.

“Minus our record, we’re a really good football team,” Hyde said. “Next year, we’re going to win the Super Bowl.”

Garoppolo, who’s been on a winning Super Bowl team, the Patriots, as Tom Brady’s backup, was a bit more realistic. “I’ll talk to him about that,” he said about Hyde’s unrestrained enthusiasm. “Yeah, I don’t know. We’re dealing with the Rams next week, and we’ll look at everything else after that.”

What the less-than-capacity gathering at Levi’s was looking at on Sunday was a game that brought loud cheers and, for Garoppolo, chants of “MVP, MVP,” even though that reaction started after San Francisco’s K’Waun Williams intercepted a pass in the third quarter, setting up a Garoppolo-to-George Kittle TD pass.

But Garoppolo is the catalyst, as a winning quarterback always is. An offense needs balance. “Carlos said before me, him and Matt went out there today, 'This is going to be on our backs,'” said Juszczyk. 

Meaning they had to run the ball to keep the Jaguars’ excellent pass rush from burying Garoppolo. They did. Hyde carried 21 times for 52 yards and a touchdown. Breida ran 11 times for 74 yards (including a 30-yarder) and a touchdown, and Juszczyk, the blocker, had five receptions for 44 yards.

Garoppolo has the intangibles. When he’s there, the team seems to have more life.  

Years ago, when John Elway retired as Denver’s quarterback, I asked Norv Turner, who would come and go as an NFL head coach, what the Broncos would be like without Elway. “I can’t predict,” said Turner, “but a great quarterback will win two games your team probably would have lost without him.”

With Garoppolo as starter, the Niners haven’t lost any games. Yes, you’re allowed to say, “Wait 'til next year.”

‘Kyle made us believe,’ said Niners’ Celek

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By Art Spander

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Sure, it was inevitable. Nobody loses them all in the NFL — if you discount the 2008 Detroit Lions. Still, that doesn’t mean there weren’t doubts from some of the players. Hey, you try going to work every day when the world is upside down.

And that doesn’t mean when the 49ers won for the first time since Kyle Shanahan became head coach — in their 10th game — they wouldn’t celebrate by dumping a bucket of water over on him, not Gatorade.

“We knew it was coming,” said Garrett Celek, the tight end who was very loose. “That’s the mentality of Kyle. He makes us believe.”

Then after a pause, a bit of self-reflection if not self-congratulations, Celek, who scored a touchdown on a 47-yard pass play in which he looked more like a ballerina than a receiver, compared a glorious recent pass with a disappointing present,at least until Sunday’s 31-21 victory over the New York Giants.

“I’ve been on teams (the 2012 Niners, his rookie season) that went to the Super Bowl,” said Celek. “It’s easy to work out then, easy to go every day. But when you haven’t won, it’s not so easy. But Kyle made us believe. That’s the culture he created.”

Although, as Shanahan conceded, the losses eat away at you. “Most people,” said the coach, “it’s a lot easier to check out, point fingers at people. That’s not what our guys did.”

Yes, just 1-9 (as compared to the awful Giants at 1-8), but success at last. Smiles at last. The way the Niners jogged off the field, players tossing chin straps and gloves to the remainder of a much-too-small Levi’s Stadium crowd (70,133 tickets sold; maybe 45,000 tickets used) it was if they had won a championship.

There was Jimmy Garoppolo, presumably the quarterback-to be, still not having played a down since being acquired from the Patriots, hurling his chin strap to a delighted fan. And there was C.J. Beathard, the quarterback of the last few weeks — and didn’t he play beautifully Sunday? — running to the locker room and the unknown.

The Niners have their bye next weekend. On ESPN, Adam Schefter said when they play their subsequent game, Garoppolo will be the starter. Not so fast, said Shanahan. “C.J.’s done a good job," the coach said. “He’s the same guy he’s been all season. Nothing’s too big for him.

“We haven’t made any decisions yet on our quarterbacks, so how could it be announced? We’re taking it week by week. We’ll continue working with Jimmy during bye week. We’ll have a bonus practice next Monday, then see where it goes from there. We’ll make our evaluation after that, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.”

Beathard, a rookie who took over for Brian Hoyer a few games back, threw for 288 yards and two touchdowns and ran 11 yards for another touchdown. If this was his last game as a starter — for the immediate future, at least — it was a memorable one.

The Niners had lost five games in a row by three points or fewer. Then they were thumped. “Adversity,” said Shanahan. “It made us tougher. We got better through adversity.”

Now they have a victory. “Just one win,” said Shanahan. “We worked real hard for it. “

He was standing at the dais in the auditorium employed as a classroom for the players and at other times, such as this, media interview sessions. He was soaked and happy.

A season ago, as offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons, he had gone to the Super Bowl. But now he was the head man. From now on, Kyle Shanahan would never lack a “W” beside his name.

“What people don’t realize,” said Shanahan, who is the son of former coach Mike Shanahan and grew up within the game, “is how hard it is to win in the NFL. The more you coach, the more you realize, whether it’s a good team or a not so good team ... five in a row by three points or less made us understand you can’t waste one play, can’t waste one day.

“Four hours on Sunday, but it starts on Wednesday.”

This was the first time in any of their six home games this season the Niners had a lead. “The biggest thing,” said Shanahan, "was how we did on third down. We had struggled not being able to play those third downs and stay on the field.”

In this game, this first winning game, they stayed. And stayed. They converted eight of the 12 third-down attempts, 67 percent. So two out of three times, the 49ers had their first down.  And with Beathard connecting with Celek for the 47 yards, with Marquise Goodwin for 83 yards (“fastest man in the league,” Celek insisted) and with Matt Breida running 33 yards, they had what’s more important, touchdowns.

“We had some explosiveness this year,” Shanahan agreed. “We didn’t have explosive touchdowns. Then we got them.”

And, at last, the win.

49ers and Shanahan: Give them time

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By Art Spander

SANTA CLARA — There was disappointment. There was no despondency. Somehow, after his first game as an NFL head coach, an event unfortunately of more yawns than thrills, Kyle Shanahan, very much a realist, made you feel there would be better days — and of course that’s the reason the 49ers hired him.

In our fantasies, the new guy walks in and, voila, turns a loser — which the Niners have been the last couple of years — into a winner. But as everyone since the days of Bill Walsh, who started in 1979, should be aware, success is a painful process, requiring patience and at least a dozen upgrades of the roster.

One could study both the progress and the result of San Francisco’s and young Mr. Shanahan’s debut for this season of ’17, boring for the most part and unrewarding specifically, and wonder what had changed from the Jim Tomsula (5-11 in 2015) or Chip Kelly (2-14 in 2016) years.

Not much was different in the stands at Levi’s Stadium, where despite the announced attendance of 70,178 Sunday at least a third of the seats were unfilled — especially in the west stands, where the sun bakes those who do remain. Game-time temperature, in the shade, was 87 degrees.

On the field, the Niners kept falling further and behind, 7-0, 10-0, all the way to 20-0, before kicking a face-saving field goal, ultimately losing 23-3. And yet, both the way the Niners played defense — and never mind Shanahan was an offensive coordinator — and the words Shanahan employed in his post-game interview offered glimpses of hope.

Teams don’t effect coaching changes when they are any good. Walsh lost his opening seven games and went 2-14 that first year. He became an offensive genius, but not until Joe Montana replaced Steve DeBerg as quarterback the middle of Walsh’s second year.

Is it unfair to describe Brian Hoyer as Shanahan’s DeBerg? Hoyer is the best of the worst, or at least in Shanahan’s view the best he has. Hoyer threw 35 passes Sunday; 24 were caught by the Niners, one by the Panthers. But what doomed the Niners on offense was their running game. They gained 51 yards net. Carolina’s rookie Christian McCaffrey, from Stanford, had 47 on his own. Teammate Jonathan Stewart had 65.

So the better team won (two seasons ago the Panthers were in the Super Bowl, right here at Levi’s). Still, Shanahan understood the situation — and he didn't concede to it. He liked the effort. Maybe no touchdowns, but also no quit.

“We go make sure we get better,” he acknowledged. And just the way he said it, without pomp or pretense, a guy who has been a part of football since he was a kid — that’s what happens when your dad is a dad, not to mention a Super Bowl champion — was enduring.

The last real game before this one in which Shanahan was a coach was also a Super Bowl, last February. He was the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons, who built up a 28-3 third-quarter lead over New England before losing, 34-28, in overtime. Maybe the play-calling had something to do with that, or a lot to do with that. Or maybe the Falcons' defense just collapsed.

Whatever, as assistant and head coach, Shanahan is 0-2 in the last two meaningful games his teams have played. Then again, this all might border on irrelevancy, numbers to fill space and create conversation. Just like asking whether the 49ers, with their penalties (10 for 74 yards) and a Carolina interception on the SF28) beat themselves.

“I don’t think that,” said Shanahan unemotionally. “That’s a good team, and you’ve got to be at your best to play against them. By no means do I think we beat ourselves. I’ve got to give credit to them. They deserve it. We can make it a lot easier.”

Levi’s, in its fourth season (and hosting its fourth head coach) rarely has been full up with spectators. Someone felt compelled to bring up the issue to the new coach, asking, “Do you have anything to say to the fans in terms of the product getting better or hang in there with you, any of that kind of stuff?”

“I didn’t notice attendance or anything,” said Shanahan, “but I thought the fans were great. I don’t think we gave them much to cheer for in the second, so I definitely can’t blame them for that. They haven’t had a lot to cheer about recently, but I promise we’re going to do everything we can, working as hard as we can, to change that — as soon as we possibly can.”   

That, certainly, is why he is the new coach.

SportsXchange: Shanahan exits Falcons after deflating defeat

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By Art Spander
SportsXchange

HOUSTON -- It was nearly a perfect ending for Kyle Shanahan. The offense that he developed as coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons couldn't be stopped, and the defense was no less impressive.

Shanahan's final game with the Falcons, Super Bowl LI on Sunday night before he stepped away to become the presumptive head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, was everything the Falcons and their fans -- and the Niners -- could have wanted. 

Read the full story here.

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