The 2020 season was supposed to be the Revenge Tour for the San Francisco 49ers.
They suffered a heartbreaking loss in Super Bowl LIV against the Kansas City Chiefs, but the team was determined to get back to the big game and set things right.
But the football gods had other ideas.
The season got off to a pretty good start.
The 49ers jumped out to a 10-0 lead against the Arizona Cardinals after Raheem Mostert took an angle route 76 yards to the house.
But then there was a special teams breakdown (sound familiar?) and the Cardinals blocked a punt.
That set Arizona up for an easy touchdown, and the 49ers never looked right.
The Cardinals eventually took the lead, and Jimmy Garoppolo failed to hit an open Kendrick Bourne in the end zone late in the 4th quarter for what would have been the game-winning touchdown.
Home opener ruined in a 24-20 loss.
It was all downhill from there.
The team turned into a M*A*S*H unit the next week against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium.
The 49ers had one of the highest ever adjusted games lost (AGL) due to injury since the stat was recorded.
Adding insult to injury, the 49ers were kicked out of their home stadium due to California COVID policies.
They limped across the finish line at 6-10.
Fast-forward to 2024, and the vibes are eerie.
After another gut-wrenching loss to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII, the 49ers’ subsequent season is teetering on the brink.
In 2020, a depleted 49ers team with Richie James as its featured wide receiver got smoked by the Green Bay Packers.
A similarly hampered 49ers team just got taken apart by the Packers at Lambeau.
Injuries, holdouts, hold-ins, a Madden curse, subpar play, and more injuries have put the 49ers in a tenuous position at 5-6 with unfavorable tiebreaker scenarios.
An oft-cited cliché is that “football is a game of inches.”
Trite as it might be, it’s true.
The margins are small in the NFL.
A handful of plays can be the difference between “resilience” and “incompetence.”
For example, the defending champs are 10-1 despite injury issues of their own.
The Chiefs eked by the Baltimore Ravens (Isaiah Likely’s toe out of bounds), the Cincinnati Bengals (pass interference on 4th & 16), the Atlanta Falcons (dubious no-call on pass interference in the end zone), the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Bowles does not go for two), and the Denver Broncos (blocked chip-shot field goal at the buzzer).
And they were in a death struggle with the Carolina Panthers yesterday.
Kansas City could very easily be 5-6 right now.
This should not be taken as a defense of the 49ers.
Good teams find ways to win.
The 49ers are not a good team this year.
They have blown three leads to division opponents with under 2 minutes to go, and the special teams mistakes have gotten more comical by the week.
Against the Packers, the 49ers finally got a big play in the return game, and it was called back because of a textbook pancake block.
The 49ers have six games left and they’re only one game out of first place.
However, they have sputtered through the easy part of their schedule.
Rattling off wins against the Bills, Lions, and resurgent Dolphins seems unlikely.
Crazier things have happened.
Since the NFL moved to the 17-game schedule with 7 teams making the playoffs, no 10-7 team has been left out of the postseason.
That means the 49ers could theoretically lose another game and still have a shot.
But 10-7 probably won’t be enough because of those damn tiebreakers; the 49ers are 1-3 in the NFC West and 3-5 in the NFC.
The playoffs have essentially begun for the 49ers.
One more loss, start booking those Cabo reservations.