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Heading into the Week 9 bye last season, the\u00a0San Francisco 49ers\u00a0were skidding. Their offense had scored 17 points in each of three consecutive games \u2014 all losses \u2014 and something felt\u00a0off<\/em>. The euphoria of drubbing the\u00a0Dallas Cowboys\u00a042-10 was long gone, and some anxiety started to set in. The run defense had been flat for several games, quarterback\u00a0Brock Purdy\u00a0was committing ugly turnovers and there was a lack of continuity across the board.<\/p>\n The focus at that time was on defensive coordinator Steve Wilks. And Shanahan\u2019s answer to that was moving him down from the booth to the sideline, so he could be in better communication with his players. The next game out, the 49ers held the\u00a0Jacksonville Jaguars\u00a0to three points. It was the first of six consecutive 49er victories and San Francisco closed out the season 7-2 before sweeping into the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a memory that has differing vantages. Some might see it as Shanahan scapegoating his defensive coordinator \u2014 who he later fired after a Super Bowl loss to the\u00a0Kansas City Chiefs\u00a0\u2014 at a time when Shanahan\u2019s own offense was a big part of the problem. Others might see it as Shanahan shaking up his staff\u2019s routine and trying to engage a different dynamic and spark the team.<\/p>\n Whatever it was, it feels relevant to the 2024 iteration of the 49ers. They\u2019re off-kilter again, this time fumbling in a\u00a0fairly critical 20-17 home loss to the Seattle Seahawks\u00a0that drops San Francisco to 5-5 and the bottom of an extremely tight NFC West, thanks to a woeful 1-3 record in the division. Sunday\u2019s defeat stung in multiple ways, from star edge rusher\u00a0Nick Bosa\u00a0suffering his second oblique injury of the season, to Purdy misfiring under pressure on a key third-down hot read (which could have iced a win for San Francisco), to the 49ers\u2019 defense looking half-asleep as the Seahawks put together an astonishing 12-play, 80-yard touchdown drive in the final minutes of the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n With that drive, the Seahawks put themselves back into the race to win the NFC West \u2014 which could produce only one playoff team \u2014 and deal a crucial blow to the 49ers\u2019 efforts to move to the top of the division. The complication for San Francisco this year? There is no Wilks to blame. There is no bye week to get things right. And now the focus is starting to shift to Shanahan\u2019s offensive play-calling. This is coming on the heels of a\u00a0testy tone he took with a 49ers beat reporter on Friday, following a question about the number of plays Purdy has available when he steps to the line of scrimmage.<\/p>\n Oh, and lest we forget, the 49ers\u2019 next two games are both on the road and across the country \u2014 first against the 7-3\u00a0Green Bay Packers\u00a0next Sunday, then facing the 9-2 flexing-their-muscles\u00a0Buffalo Bills\u00a0in the Sunday night prime-time slot on Dec. 1. That should be a fairly white-knuckling horizon for a San Francisco franchise that is 3-3 in its past six games, has seen Purdy throw six interceptions in that span and is suddenly in the midst of streamlining the offense back through running back\u00a0Christian McCaffrey, who has played his first two games of the season the past two weeks.<\/p>\n Take a step back, and what you see is a 49ers season that may hang on the outcome of the next two weeks. That\u2019s something San Francisco\u2019s coaching staff had to know hosting Seattle. For a mid-November game, it was a must-win situation \u2014 if only to keep the 49ers from giving life to virtually the entire NFC West and ratcheting up the pressure to steal games in very difficult places to win the next two weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cJust extremely disappointed,\u201d Shanahan said of Sunday\u2019s loss. \u201cI thought we had a chance to put them away a number of times throughout the game. I thought the penalties we had on a number of drives just killed us. I thought we had some good momentum and then had a penalty that kind of ended the drive on two big drives \u2014 that cost us points on both of them. We still should have put it away there on that last drive and had every opportunity to, and missed a couple opportunities to do that. \u2026 When you let people hang around, that\u2019s what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n For Shanahan \u2014 who has occasionally (or often) been criticized for his struggles to win tight games late in the fourth quarter \u2014 it\u2019s going to only intensify a microscope on his game management. While he\u2019s not calling plays for the defense, it still reflects on the head coach when his team can\u2019t close out close games. Especially when those games are instead seized by an opposing offense and quarterback late. Aside from the Seahawks\u2019\u00a0Geno Smith, the 49ers have also given up crucial drives to\u00a0Matthew Stafford\u00a0and the\u00a0Los Angeles Rams\u00a0and\u00a0Kyler Murray\u00a0and the\u00a0Arizona Cardinals\u00a0in two losses earlier this season.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that the 49ers don\u2019t have an ability to win. It\u2019s that they too often don\u2019t have the ability to\u00a0close<\/em>. And losing close games makes the margin for error only slimmer in the face of the injuries the 49ers are juggling, including the loss of wideout\u00a0Brandon Aiyuk\u00a0for the season, the in-and-out health of tight end\u00a0George Kittle, the always tense medical status of\u00a0Deebo Samuel Sr.\u00a0and McCaffrey, and now the oblique issues with Bosa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Heading into the Week 9 bye last season, the\u00a0San Francisco 49ers\u00a0were skidding. Their offense had scored 17 points in each of three consecutive games \u2014 all losses… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/SFASFD-300x115.jpg\")
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