Kyle Shanahan confronts 49ers’ struggles as playoff hopes fade in 2024

Kyle Shanahan did not hold back from admitting the 49ers are in a rough position as they sit at the bottom of the NFC West.

Kyle Shanahan confronts 49ers’ struggles as playoff hopes fade in 2024

Kyle Shanahan (Image via IMAGO)

The San Francisco 49ers have been the biggest letdowns of the 2024 NFL season. The team that made it to the Super Bowl last season is now sitting at the bottom of the NFC West and their odds of making the playoffs is looking grim.

The team has struggled due to injuries to key players such as Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel who have been unavailable for stretches through the season. There is no other way to say it but to acknowledge the fact that the 49ers are in a rough spot and Head Coach Kyle Shanahan understands this.

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In his recent press conference, he was asked if the mood in the locker room is one filled with denial or acceptance of where they are. In response, Shanahan said:

We knew coming into this year we were going to have work to do. I didn’t feel there right after training camp, I thought we had a chance though to get better as the year went, especially at the beginning of our schedule, which I thought was a lot easier than the second half. I thought we would improve and kind of build that as we went and I was hoping we could be 8-2 when we got to the tough stretch…we’ve got to do some special things to get out of this hole we put ourself in and we understand that.

Kyle Shanahan told reporters

Kyle Shanahan acknowledged the fact that at the outset of the season, he knew this would be a challenging year to get back to the Super Bowl.

Kyle Shanahan admits he was expecting the San Francisco 49ers to be in a better position this far along the season

The HC expressed his surprise at the team’s struggles early on in the season. As per his estimate, the 49ers should have eased through the first half of their season and won games against the likes of the Vikings, Rams, and the Cardinals. However, the team entered its bye-week with a 4-4 record.

San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan knows his defense needs to be elite to win a Super Bowl
San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan finds himself in a tough spot (image via Imago)

Things continued to get tricky from that point as they won their Week 10 matchup but since have gone on a three-game losing streak. Kyle Shanahan believes the 49ers will need to do things differently if they intend to get out of this hole they’ve dug for themselves. It has been an unfortunate run for the team which was feared for its defense last season.

This year, the unavailability of Christian McCaffrey, a season-ending injury to Brandon Aiyuk, and Brock Purdy being out of the lineup for a while, owing to his shoulder injury, have been major reasons for their lack of production on the run game.

Another reason is Brock Purdy being on the receiving end of the highest-blitzed offense in the league. The quarterback has been blitzed 36.4% of the time, the most in the NFL this season as per Sports Illustrated’s numbers.

The team’s defense has not been spared by the injury bug either as Nick Bosa, the defensive backbone, has been kept out of games due to his hip. With just five more games left in the season, it will be hard for the 49ers to get into a position to make the playoffs.

The team will have to win all five of their games. They face the Bears, Rams, Dolphins, Lions, and the Cardinals. It seems that two of these five games they can win, but they have already lost matchups earlier this season to the Rams and the Cardinals—so these games will be hard to predict.

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