The 49ers season is on life support.
The San Francisco 49ers looked like a California team not prepared for the elements. They were slipping and sliding around. No catch was a guarantee, not even the wide-open ones. No common football move came easy to them all night long.
It would be easy to say it was just one game if the 49ers resembled the team that made the Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs in 2023 and anything like their normal selves this season. Instead, the 49ers dropped even further down, like a rock, in the standings, their faint playoff hopes likely being buried in the Buffalo snow.
The Buffalo Bills at 10-2, are a Super Bowl contender and the 49ers, who are going in the completely opposite direction, probably are not even a playoff team due to bad play and injuries at key positions. That’s how Sunday night’s game played out, with the Bills cruising to an easy 35-10 win in snowy conditions. Buffalo clinched the AFC East title with the victory.
The 49ers fell to 5-7, and star running back Christian McCaffrey left the game with a PCL injury that could sideline him for the rest of the season.
The 49ers took last season’s Super Bowl to overtime, where they lost 25-22 and ran it back with practically their entire roster for 2024. There have been countless injuries, which have not helped. But when this miserable and forgettable season is over, and wrapped up much sooner than anyone could ever imagine, San Francisco’s front office must take a long look at what got away from them. There is going to be more than a few things to sort out.
Snow games set the scene for a fun and entertaining environment, and more times than not very sloppy play. The 49ers were a comedy like Steve Harvey on Sunday night. Normally sure-handed players like tight end George Kittle dropped easy passes. Reliable fullback Kyle Juszczyk fumbled the rock right before crossing the goal line when the ball was punched out, and Brock Purdy lost a fumble when he went to pass and the ball simply fell out of his hands.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe 49ers’ once vaunted defense looked sluggish as they attempted to chase James Cook on the Bills running back’s 65-yard touchdown. They looked confused and out of sorts when Amari Cooper lateraled to Josh Allen for a 9-yard touchdown to give the Bills a commanding 28-3 lead. Officially, Allen got a touchdown pass and a touchdown reception on the play. According to NBC, Allen became the fourth player in NFL history to get a receiving touchdown on a pass he threw.
“It’s got to be up there. I wish he got credited for something there, an assist or a passing touchdown,” Allen said of Cooper. “I just kind of chased the ball to be there and we made eye contact. … It was dope.”
Cooper said he acted on instinct in a play that could well have been drawn up in the snow on the sideline.
“I was wondering what he was doing over there,” Cooper said. “I figured he was over there because he wanted the ball, so I gave it to him.”
The 49ers got royally outplayed and embarrassed last week, 38-10, by Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers and they were down by 18, 21-3, at halftime on Sunday night. Early this season the 49ers lost some close games that put them behind the eight ball. With the season in the balance the past two weeks, they have not even show up and been competitive.
The McCaffrey injury is another setback. McCaffrey missed the first eight games of the season with Achilles tendonitis. He returned and in his fourth game back he started limping right after taking a handoff and fell to the ground. He got up and ran awkwardly to the sideline and never returned. If he misses significant time, it makes life even harder for coach Kyle Shanahan and a 49ers offense that has been stuck in neutral of late.
“It feels dark and gloomy and absolutely depressing, honestly I’ll feel that probably in a couple hours,” tight end George Kittle said. “The only way to make this feel better is to go take advantage of next week and try to get a win.”
No. 1 wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk, who signed a four-year, $120M contract, suffered a season-ending ACL injury weeks ago. Veteran stalwarts Nick Bosa and Trent Williams were among the players out for the 49ers on Sunday night. Fred Warner has been gutting it out and playing through a fractured ankle and fellow linebacker Dre Greenlaw has not taken the field at all this season.
Injuries have been a major factor, but many of the players who have been on the field have not played up to their standards. In many aspects, the 49ers look exactly like a 5-7 team. Like Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells said, “You are what your record says you are.”
Just because Bills players reside in upstate New York does not mean they are accustomed to playing football with inches of snow on the ground. They just handled the conditions much better than the 49ers.
Allen made some key plays with his arm and his legs, including his touchdown pass that was officially to himself and an 8-yard touchdown run that put Buffalo up 35-10. Allen was lifted from the game with more than 12 minutes to go, with the outcome already in hand.
“It’s a good feeling. This one feels a little bit different this early in the season,” Allen said of clinching the division while also staying in the hunt to catch Kansas City (11-1) for the AFC’s No. 1 seed. “It’s going to be fun, I mean, to go out there and play free and play relaxed and play loose. I think that could be a dangerous team.”
With the division in hand and still five games to go, the Bills are still chasing the No. 1 seed in the AFC, hoping for the Kansas City Chiefs to finally lose a close game. The Bills look like a well-oiled machine and a complete team capable of winning it all and have the 10-2 record to show for it. That is what the 49ers were expected to be.
The 49ers are not completely done but might need to win out or close to make the playoffs. It is December and San Francisco is bringing up the rear in the NFC West. It will not get any easier going forward with some of the 49ers’ core either approaching 30 years old or already in their 30s, and Purdy soon to get a lucrative extension that will change their salary-cap situation.
The past two games might have derailed the 49ers’ playoff aspirations for this season, and perhaps will be looked at as the last dance of what looked like a championship run in San Francisco. Nobody anticipated the 49ers playing meaningless football this December and early January. But after a pair of blowout losses to stiff competition, the 49ers look like they will be a nonfactor the rest of the season.
The 49ers host Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears next Sunday.
The Bills travel to Los Angeles to take on Puka Nacua and the Rams next Sunday.
