49ers’ latest loss had a theme: This team lacks leadership of Staley, Buckner and Sherman
The 49ers are a team lacking a fire from the top.
Right now coach Kyle Shanahan’s club is without personality, verve and a sense of urgency. The season is slipping away, and the team doesn’t have an identity, a purpose beyond the usual platitudes. That was evident during Sunday’s embarrassing home loss to the Arizona Cardinals, 31-17, who were without star quarterback Kyler Murray, receiver DeAndre Hopkins and defensive end J.J. Watt.
“I was real disappointed,” Shanahan said afterwards, surprised his team couldn’t continue its strong play from the second half of the previous game in Chicago. “I thought we’d play really well. Had a good week of practice. I thought we’d even improve from the week prior, but obviously it didn’t go that way.”
Arizona thumped the once-proud 49ers on their home field, where San Francisco hasn’t won since October of 2020. It’s been 385 days since the team celebrated victory in its billion-dollar venue.
The 49ers don’t have the same tone-setters from when it reached the Super Bowl in 2019. To think they would replicate the formula from that season is folly. Perhaps that’s one of Shanahan’s biggest misreads in a season full of them.
There’s no Joe Staley, who knew he was at the end of his career and had limited chances to hoist the Lombardi Trophy after a career filled with more despair than triumph. He had urgency and desperation.
There’s no DeForest Buckner, whose professionalism, durability and production were easy leads to follow. He had been with the team through the depths of losing and was key in its rise from the 2-14 Chip Kelly year. But he was traded away after the Super Bowl run. His replacement, Javon Kinlaw, is done for the season after having knee surgery.
There’s no Richard Sherman, who would stand in front of the world and tell people they were wrong for ever doubting them or their process. There was never a shortage of intensity with Sherman around. He instilled confidence in his teammates in a unique way. He was a future Hall of Famer who even had someone like Ahkello Witherspoon believing he was one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL, whether that was a rational thought or not.
There’s none of that on this 3-5 team. No swagger. No ability to talk with their pads and tell their opponent, “not in our house.”
Tight end George Kittle in 2019 was in his third season, trying to solidify himself as a star in the league. This year he’s been injured, again, after getting a $75 million contract before 2020. His hunger is there, but only when he’s available to play, which has been in four of the eight games because of a calf issue. He was strong Sunday in his return from injured reserve, scoring his first touchdown of the season, adding six catches and 101 yards.
So how can Kittle and the other team leaders get the locker room to bounce back next week against the powerhouse Rams?
“It’s adversity,” Kittle said. “Yeah, it sucks. But at the end of the day, you’re playing football. It’s your dream job, and if you’re not inspired to come back next week and work twice as hard, fix the little the stuff, we’re going to watch the film tough ... and get better from it, then you’re playing the wrong the sport. I’d hope our guys are inspired to play, because I don’t want to lose every single game. That’s not fun.”
Kittle after that said he didn’t think the team lacked inspiration Sunday. But his comments didn’t sound like they were coming from someone who could, without question, expect his teammates to play with the same inspiration he does.
Linebacker Fred Warner seems like the most obvious candidate to have a Buckner- or Sherman-like impact. But Warner’s words of steadiness haven’t been enough. His tenacity hasn’t been a galvanizing force the 49ers paid for by giving him a five-year, $95 million contract after the defense lost Buckner and Sherman.
It was the defense’s performance against the Colt McCoy-led Cardinals that was the most alarming development from Sunday. McCoy finished with a 22 of 26 completions for 249 yards and did not look like a career backup. He was hitting all the right notes while head coach Kliff Kingsbury outclassed Shanahan and his staff in a jarring way.
“It’s pretty embarrassing,” Warner said. “It’s unacceptable, for sure.”
A bad 49ers loss this season has generally led to discussion about what’s happening at quarterback. But Jimmy Garoppolo gave San Francisco a chance by completing 28 of 40 for 326 yards. It marked his second straight game with over 300 yards passing. He wasn’t the problem.
It’s normally the defense that picks up Garoppolo. Instead, first-year coordinator DeMeco Ryans’ unit was leaking oil and couldn’t make tackles, let alone get stops to keep Arizona from the end zone. The 49ers scored a touchdown at the end of their miserable first half, hoping to carry momentum through halftime to come back from a 17-7 deficit, which seemed reasonable.
Only the Cardinals opened the third quarter with a three-play touchdown drive. It was easy as pie for running back James Conner, hardly Arizona’s biggest star, who scored three touchdowns with 173 yards of total offense on the day. His touchdown was a 45-yard screen pass in which he zipped through a sleepy defense.
Garoppolo watched from the sideline, which lost its momentum after regrouping at halftime.
“It’s tough,” Garoppolo said. “That’s why we as an offense, we’ve got to help the defense out early on to not let them be in that situation. I think that’s where it starts and we’ll always take responsibility as I’m sure they will too. We’re all in this thing together right now and we’ve got to figure it out.”
Garoppolo’s supporting cast didn’t help all that much. Kittle and Brandon Aiyuk had fumbles that could have taken points off the board. Those giveaways overshadowed a productive offensive day, though the points weren’t there.
San Francisco’s defense is predicated on stopping big plays and keeping things in front of them. Yet it was death by a thousand screens on Sunday, with bad tackling and bad angles causing groans and grumbles from fans at Levi’s Stadium. Those fans were expecting the 49ers put together their first winning streak since the first two weeks of the season, which the team needed badly with Murray and Hopkins sidelined.
This is a group of players that aren’t playing like they feel empowered.
Perhaps that’s on Shanahan, who has been hesitant to play young players throughout the season, with many banished to the sidelines after a bad week of practice or mistake in games. That’s evident by a draft class that has been a virtual non-factor to this point, Trey Lance aside.
Second-round pick Aaron Banks hasn’t played an offensive snap, while right guard Daniel Brunskill continues to be average or below average at best. Third-round pick, Trey Sermon, was inactive on Sunday because running back Jeff Wilson Jr. was back from his offseason knee injury.
Yet Wilson didn’t play a snap, either, while the lack of trust in Sermon has been a season-long theme, leaving many to wonder if he’ll ever develop into a useful player. The 49ers traded a pair of fourth round picks to draft Sermon in Round 3, yet his lack of impact reminds of Joe Williams, the failed pick in Shanahan’s 2017 draft that never played a down in the NFL.
Rookie cornerbacks Ambry Thomas or Deommodore Lenoir can’t even play over Dre Kirkpatrick, a veteran signed off the street after the season began and has not been a competitive player. Kirkpatrick was bowled over by third-string running back Eno Benjamin during his third-quarter, 21-yard touchdown. Kirkpatrick was in the game replacing Josh Norman, who was sidelined after getting a taunting penalty for going back and forth with the Cardinals’ sideline.
Kirkpatrick’s forgettable play came two weeks after getting beaten for a touchdown by Michael Pittman Jr. at the end of the Colts game, on a play the 49ers needed him to make. Instead, he meekly allowed Pittman to make the catch and breeze into the end zone. His tackle attempt on Benjamin, a seventh-round pick in 2020, was embarrassing for a defense that used to embarrass quarterbacks throughout 2019.
The 49ers came into Sunday’s game with the league’s fifth-ranked defense, but it played like the fifth-worst.
“A lot of that stuff is just us beating ourselves,” Warner said. “... It’s one of those (games) you just got to move past quick because it was embarrassing defensively, what we put on tape. Once you get that taste out of your mouth you’ll have to get right back to work.”
When they do get back to work, they’ll need fire and desperation, a zest to prove they’re better than this. But they’ll have to overcome the leadership vacuum left by Staley, Buckner and Sherman, who aren’t coming back to show them how to do it.
This story was originally published November 8, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
