Detroit’s Avery Bradley, above, steals a Stephen Curry pass intended for Klay Thomson. The Warriors commit 25 turnovers in a 115-107 loss to the Pistons.
PHILADELPHIA — When a winless team travels three time zones to play against the best team in the league, there aren’t many lessons to be learned.
Sunday’s result was predictable. The 49ers were crushed by the Eagles 33-10. Philadelphia improved to 7-1. The 49ers fell to 0-8 for the first time in franchise history.
Lesson: The 49ers are a very bad team.
There actually was more to be gleaned from the matchup than just that painfully obvious fact. Because the Eagles offer the 49ers a blueprint for what is possible.
One caveat: In the past two decades, the Eagles did not have to rise from the depths that the 49ers now inhabit. Philadelphia went 4-12 in Andy Reid’s last season in 2012. In the 2015 and ’16 seasons, the team went 7-9. The folks in this town hate Chip Kelly with a white-hot passion, but Kelly went 10-6 in his two full seasons here and made the playoffs once.
So 2-22 — the record the 49ers have compiled since the beginning of the 2016 season — was not part of the Eagles’ experience.
Still, their story is relevant to the 49ers because it shows what can happen when you get the quarterback position right.
The Eagles took a flyer in the 2016 draft on North Dakota State’s Carson Wentz. They gave up a boatload to move up to the second pick of the draft and started Wentz every game of his rookie season.
It looked like it might have been a mistake. After some early wins, Wentz struggled and looked to have small-
school syndrome, like the NFL might have been too big for him. It’s not. Wentz has led his team to the best record in the league in the first half of this season. He went into Sunday’s game leading the league in touchdown passes with 17 and added two more against the 49ers.
Like the player who was drafted above him — Cal’s Jared Goff — the first-year growing pains are paying off. Under offensive coordinator Frank Reich (the former Buffalo quarterback) and head coach Doug Pederson (a Reid protege), Wentz has flourished.
The Eagles almost always have a stout defense. They often have a solid running game. But they’ve been looking for a quarterback ever since Donovan McNabb left town. They tried Michael Vick for a few years, then Nick Foles, Mark Sanchez and Sam Bradford.
In 2016, with Kelly fired and general manager Howie Roseman back in charge of personnel, the team went all-in on Wentz. It traded three top-100 2016 draft picks, plus a 2017 first-round pick and a 2018 second-round pick, to the Browns to ensure it could draft Wentz. The Eagles got a firstround pick back when they traded Bradford to Minnesota.
Lesson: Identify your quarterback and fully commit.
The main problem the 49ers would have following the Eagles’ blueprint is that they have so many needs. Sunday’s game was actually painful to watch, as the team that has so little talent was further depleted by a constant stream of injuries. Rookie quarterback C.J. Beathard was playing behind a makeshift line and then tackle Joe Staley went down with a gruesome eye injury, causing him to be hospitalized overnight in Philadelphia. One more injury and tight end Garrett Celek was going to play tackle.
The 49ers are a disaster in every imaginable way.
“You’ve got to be strongminded and not get caught up in the record,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said. “We’ve really got to take care of our bodies and get our team healthy. We’ve got to get these guys back, and it’s going to be that way the whole year. We have to get better.
“Guys who get better will help us. If you don’t, you’re going to get worse and it’s going to be tough to be a part of this.”
Translation: This season is all about finding out whom Shanahan wants on the team next season.
The 49ers have sent out a survey to season-ticket holders asking “in terms of the overall game-day experience, how important is it to you that your team wins?” Obviously, for most fans, it’s extremely important. However, for the 49ers’ organization, though a win or two might be nice for morale, that definitely could screw up a Wentz-like draft victory.
As it stands, the 49ers will not need to give up a lot of draft picks to get themselves into position to draft a top quarterback. They are the worst team in the NFC and could end up with the No. 1 draft pick, as long as they stay on this course and Cleveland falls into a win. Even if the Browns remain winless — a strong possibility — Cleveland probably will do something goofy on draft day.
The game was wet and nasty and an utter humiliation for the 49ers. But wrapped inside was a valuable lesson.