Photo by Ralph Freso/Getty Images
It’s okay to be sad. Yes, this is football, and there’s that whole “mental toughness” requirement that gets drilled into players starting in their Pop Warner years, but some things just suck.
Moving past emotional fatigue of Bills loss
The 49ers were sad after losing 34-24 to the Buffalo Bills. And they were right to be.
When you get kicked out of your home by the people who run your county, and sent off to Arizona to live alone in a hotel room for the foreseeable future, there has to be something you hold onto as a point of optimism. A win over the Bills was that point for San Francisco.
If they beat Buffalo and made it to 6-6, the 49ers would be firmly in the playoff hunt, with control of their own destiny.
There was a genuine confidence from the team and coaching staff that the game plan was stellar, and they could handle Josh Allen and counter him offensively.
Turns out, that wasn’t the case. And the 5-7 49ers are stuck in the desert without their families, and without control of their own destiny. After as brutal a season as most players and coaches have ever faced, it’s more than alright to be sad.
Kyle Shanahan acknowledged that on Wednesday. Yes, that loss cut deeper than most. And it will take more effort than most to recover from emotionally. Shanahan said Wednesday’s team meeting was “longer than usual,” as he sought to assure players that they were right to believe they’d win on Monday, despite the result.
“I think that’s the challenge,” Shanahan said. “I mean, Monday night was a letdown. We did feel that way. What you you felt was true. There wasn’t much in our minds that pictured us losing that game. Just the way we felt, the week we had, we did go into that very confidently and so we were pretty disappointed after the game.”
Shanahan said that feeling carried into Tuesday. He used Wednesday’s meeting to show clips of exactly what went wrong and again, to show the 49ers that their confidence heading into the game was well placed.
“When you go into a game expecting to play a certain way, the way it got out of hand a little bit on a few big plays on defense, and then a couple missed opportunities on offense, it was just very frustrating because the way the game got dictated, I compare it to how the New Orleans game was last year,” Shanahan said. “I know we were up for that, and we didn’t get it done. So you got to show the guys what happened, why it happened, so we can work on not letting it happen again this week.”
Crucially, Shanahan said players can’t let the result change how they felt prior to the game, but realize that, “you can’t do these mistakes if you want to win football games.”
What Kyle looks for in quarterbacks
This is the great question for San Francisco. What does Kyle Shanahan want in a quarterback? Is he still infatuated with Kirk Cousins (short answer: yes)? Can he get over that infatuation and see a future with a dual-threat quarterback (short answer: we don’t know)?
What’s perhaps most important is that Shanahan and John Lynch have clearly evolved since they took the reigns of the franchise. From the Dante Pettises of the world to Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk.
From Joe Williams to Jeff Wilson and JaMycal Hasty (although, there is still Tevin Coleman, so let’s hold on the rapturous applause there).
From Ahkello Witherspoon to Emmanuel Moseley.
The 49ers have sought out tougher players, and seem to have evolved in their decision-making on a few key positions. The question is if they’ve done the same with quarterbacks, because they notoriously chose tough-guy C.J. Beathard and Solomon Thomas over a couple guys named Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson.
“How I evaluate everything is always changing,” Shanahan said. “Things change. People change. You start to see you can win football games with any type of quarterback as long as they are good enough and you can be good enough in hundreds of different ways.
I evaluate quarterbacks in terms of trying to find people who can have a chance to be one of those elite-type guys and there’s lots of different ways to do it. I mean you can see now there’s plenty of different ways so I don’t think that’ll ever change I don’t think you have one certain thing you’re type, looking for you’re just trying to find a guy who is better than about 98% of the people on this planet, or in this country and when you find that you get them and you adjust to him.”
In other words, Shanahan’s not going to get into specifics about what he’s looking for.
Time for Brandon Aiyuk to return punts?
Aiyuk was an elite returner in college, with yards-per-return averages on both kick returns and punt returns that were in the top-five of Division I football. The question is not whether he would translate in the NFL, but whether it was worth the risk, throwing him in on the most dangerous plays in the NFL.
Kick returns are so notoriously brutal and low-reward that it always seemed out of the question for him to be used in that role. But for a team desperate for a spark—and Shanahan saying after a two-fumbled punt game in New Orleans that the team might look to Aiyuk as a returner—there was an increased buzz about Aiyuk returning punts.
On Monday, he returned his first punt of his career for 16 yards, juking and shedding a handful of defenders with relative ease for the 49ers’ second-longest return of the year and the 33rd-longest in the NFL this season.
But is the risk of injury worth that upside? Shanahan seems to think so, though he might pick his spots.
“I’ve been wanting to use him,” Shanahan said. “We always knew we would use him there if he did as good as he did in college and nothing changed and we felt that since the day we met him. But you want to wait till he’s consistently getting out there and getting a few more practices in and I told him on Wednesday, when we met early in that week, that he was gonna have some opportunities in the game.”
Shanahan said that putting Aiyuk in that role allowed the 49ers to leave Trent Taylor inactive. He said he understands why folks prefer to protect a stellar, young receiver like Aiyuk, but that he feels players can protect themselves on punt returns.
“I understand people’s philosophy on that,” Shanahan said. “When you have a starting receiver like that, you’re probably not going to put them out there every single time. But I also view punt returns and kick returns as two totally different things. Punt returns I think are a lot easier to protect yourself on, as opposed to a kickoff return. Doesn’t mean you can’t get hurt, though, you can get hurt on anything.”
Other notes: Practice report, Mullens’ praise for Williams, and Warner’s slip-up
Practice report: The following players did not participate in practice for the 49ers on Wednesday:
- Deebo Samuel: It’s a foot contusion from being kneed on the foot on Monday, but it’s not expected to be serious. If it were a normal week, Kyle Shanahan said he probably would have practiced. They view this Wednesday like a Tuesday given Monday’s game.
- Emmanuel Moseley: Didn’t practice with the same hamstring injury that had him sidelined against the Bills.
- D.J. Jones: Suffered an ankle sprain, but was not a high ankle sprain. There’s hope he can return before the end of the season.
- Tom Compton: Out with a concussion for the second time in the past three weeks.
- Kevin Givens: Excused for personal reasons
K’Waun Williams returned to practice in limited fashion. He is working back from a high sprained ankle that threatened to end his season.
Mullens thanks Williams: It’s what some people would call a “revenge game” for Trent Williams, who is facing the team he spent his entire career with prior to this season. Mullens took time to praise Williams for his role in the locker room:
“He’s an incredibly talented player,” Mullens said. “Really cool teammate. I really enjoy being around Trent, just talking to him, a really cool dude. And obviously a leader. He’s a very strong leader in this locker room actually. He speaks up when things need to be said, and I obviously his resume speaks for itself. I’m very thankful that he’s got my blind side.”
Warner’s slip-up: Fred Warner accidentally called the Washington Football Team by their old name, which is Washington’s fault. How pathetic of an organization do you have to be to fight changing a racist name for decades, and then, when you do change it, you’re too lazy to actually choose a name? From a comedic standpoint, it’s brilliant, but it’s just a reminder (as if anyone needed one) of how embarrassing of an owner Daniel Snyder is.