Shanahan trying to keep team focused during trying season
The 49ers already are playing for pride instead of the playoffs.
That became clear Sunday in a humiliating 28-18 home loss to the previously winless Cardinals. It was a defeat so dispiriting and revealing that head coach Kyle Shanahan’s postgame talk addressed the mentality the 49ers needed to have for the rest of a seemingly going-nowhere season.
“Get better,” fullback Kyle Juszczyk said of Shanahan’s message. “It is way too early in the season to just start going through the motions — we have 11 weeks left. We have to come in and get better. He just stressed that to us.”
Said tight end George Kittle: “When you’re 1-4, you have to look at yourself in the mirror. It brings out a lot of character. You’re going to see what type of guys are on the team.”
The 49ers are one win better than they were during last year’s 0-9 start, but they are just as irrelevant when it comes to postseason talk. And more confirmation arrived Tuesday when the NFL
pushed them out of prime time.
The league moved the 49ers out of their Sunday night slot for their home game against the Rams on Oct. 21 in favor of the unbeaten Chiefs’ home game against the Bengals (4-1).
The move was mildly surprising. The entertaining Rams (5-0) have the NFL’s top-ranked offense, but the 49ers were evidently unappealing enough to move the game’s kickoff to 1:25 p.m.
The meeting with the Rams was one of five prime-time games the 49ers were scheduled to play this season. In April, when the schedule was announced, they had a healthy Jimmy Garoppolo and soaring expectations created by last year’s 5-0 finish.
Now, they have no Garoppolo, one win, and a team no longer viewed as prime-time material.
America might not want to tune into the 49ers, but Shanahan’s challenge over the next three months is making sure his players don’t tune out.
On Monday, Shanahan was asked about the perception that the 49ers are in the midst of a lost season.
It was a subject to which Shanahan had given some thought. He answered with 669 words, perhaps his longest news-conference response of the season, and acknowledged his players were likely more frustrated this season than 2017 because they had much higher expectations.
He also noted the higher expectations would invite more criticism. Last year, the 49ers’ new regime was starting a rebuild after a 2-14 season. Now, the honeymoon is over and social media is more venomous.
“I understand the pressure that people have: players, coaches, personnel people,” Shanahan said. “It’s different in this day and age where you hear everything. It’s hard to simplify your world. With social media, when guys go home, even if they don’t listen to things, their wives do. Their girlfriends do. Their brothers do. That’s the world we live in.
“So when you go through that stuff and you don’t meet outside expectations, it starts to affect you. I just try to constantly preach to our guys to be stronger than that — to try to not pay attention to that.”
No player was more outwardly affected by Sunday’s loss than left tackle Joe Staley, 34, who was buoyant about the 49ers’ trajectory in the offseason.
On Sunday, Staley was asked what it said about the 49ers that they were in a close game with the Cardinals despite committing five turnovers and enduring more injuries.
“Yeah, I mean, I just want to win,” Staley said. “I don’t really care what it says about our football team right now. I just want to win football games. It’s kind of frustrating coming in here in the locker room and talking about what could have been.” Signing: The 49ers signed Matthew Dayes to their practice squad after he was among a group of tryout running backs Monday that included Shane Vereen, Charcandrick West, Andre Ellington and Jeremy McNichols, ESPN reported.
With running back Matt Breida not expected to play Monday against the Packers, the 49ers could promote Dayes or Jeff Wilson from the practice squad this week.
Dayes, a seventh-round pick of the Browns in 2017, was among Cleveland’s final roster cuts this season. He had five carries for 13 yards and four receptions for 29 yards as a rookie.