The San Francisco 49ers ended the season the way they played it all year – turnovers, special teams blunders, no takeaways, penalties, a lack of playmaking on defense, a multitude of injuries – all leading to 47-24 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, finishing the season 6-11.
“It doesn’t feel good,” said 49ers’ defensive end Nick Bosa. “It’s hard to look the guys in their faces as a leader on the team. That’s the product we kept putting out game after game. It’s pretty embarrassing.”
Linebacker Fred Warner, who started all 17 games this season, despite dealing with a broken bone in his ankle, agreed.
“It just hasn’t been good enough, not even close,” Warner said the team’s defensive performance this season. “And to be a part of that, knowing that I’m out there every game…obviously is a gut punch to my own pride…I’m going to do everything to make it right.”
They do have the 11th pick in the 2025 NFL Draft if you’re looking for a silver lining.
One of the major issues for the 49ers’ defense has been takeaways, as in the 49ers had one since the bye week.
“The takeaways, the lack thereof, is what killed us,” Warner said. “…We pride ourselves on taking the ball away on taking the ball away…and that’s the key to winning games, and when you’re not doing that, you don’t have a chance of winning.”
The 49ers committed 13 penalties for 85 yards. The Cardinals committed one for five yards. That’s not great.
Going into the game, WR Jauan Jennings was 77 yards away from a 1,000-yard season. After being called for two personal foul penalties, Jennings was ejected with 25 yards to go (Sean Murphy-Bunting was also ejected, because it takes two to tango). Jennings said he did not throw a punch.
“They were competing,” Shanahan said. “I know Jauan blocks through the whistle on every single play. I know you usually get ejected for throwing a punch. I didn’t see one and he didn’t tell me that he threw a punch, so that is something we’re going to have to find out…I was just asking him if he ever threw a punch and he was adamant that he didn’t. I was like, that’s what I saw so I was surprised he got ejected.”
Jennings said he was just blocking and he hopes that can be proved.
“All I did was pancake the guy, played football, laid him on his back, tried to get up, he wouldn’t let me up,” Jennings said. “And the next thing you know, they’re just looking at me like I’m the bad guy…I’m glad we have cameras out today. [Without] cameras you can be falsely accused of anything these days. So I’m glad we got cameras out there.”
Early in the game, running back Isaac Guerendo was carted off the field with what 49ers’ head coach Kyle Shanahan said they believe is a MCL injury, but they won’t know for sure until tomorrow.
The 49ers were officially eliminated from the playoffs three weeks ago, even though one could argue in Week 3. Now, they head into the offseason with decisions to make and plenty to fix.
“We’ve been processing it all year, so we’ve been trying to get there,” Shanahan said. “You don’t really accept that you’re not going to get there until you get eliminated from the playoffs. We’ve had to deal with this for the last three weeks, so we’ve been processing it. [We are] ready to finish this up and trying to finish it with a win. Didn’t get that done today, but excited to get to this offseason and figure out how to not be in this situation again.”