Losing, in long run, helps 49ers win
Fret not, 49ers fans.
While Thursday night’s high scoring and highly entertaining (from a neutral’s perspective) 41-39 loss to the Rams might feel deflating — they were so close to actually winning — it was actually the best- case scenario for the franchise.
Simply put, the 49ers won’t gain anything from actually winning games this year, so outside of registering a win or two to avoid being the worst team in NFL history, there’s no benefit to walking off the field with more points on the board at the end of games.
But Thursday’s loss to the Rams was a victory, of sorts, for the 49ers — a moral victory.
And those are the kind of victories the 49ers should be trying to accrue this year.
The’ 2017 season won’t be defined by wins and losses — it doesn’tmatter if the Niners win six games or one — it will be defined by how this season set the team up for 2018 and beyond.
And to best set the team up, the 49ers need to lose in heartbreaking fashion as often as possible.
First-year head coach Kyle Shanahan has a six-
year contract, one of the worst rosters in the NFL, and a stopgap quarterback at the helm of his offense — he’s not looking to make the playoffs, he’s looking to see who he should keep on his roster heading into next year.
Off this bottom- of-thebarrel roster, Shanahan is trying to find players with NFL- caliber talent, technique, and tenacity.
Thursday’s game was a mess. It featured two bad defenses, four ill-timed turnovers, a bevy of critical penalties and a perfect onside kick recovery.
Did it save the NFL’s beleaguered Thursday night experiment? No. But it was the most interesting and entertaining game the 49ers have played in a long time.
And it was interesting because the Niners played with relentless effort all game.
“I was proud of the guys, how they fought,” Shanahan said. “We have mentally strong people, and I believe we’ll get better from all this stuff.” That quote is telling. It says the truth that the team won’t fully cop to: The 49ers’ rebuild, in all actuality, starts next year, when the team will have a ton of money to spend in free agency and likely a load of high draft picks.
It says that this season will be about establishing a culture of which Shanahan and his hand-picked roster can build.
It might only be Week 3, but one has to think that a few players gave themselves a good chance to make next year’s roster with their play and effort Thursday.
Wide receiver Trent Taylor is one of those — the shifty fifth-round pick out of Louisiana Tech caught three passes for 32 yards and a touchdown but slipped on the 49ers’ game-tying two-point conversion attempt with 2:18 remaining and then was done in by a toughluck offensive pass interference call inside the final two minutes.
There were ups and downs, and yes, the ups came against a bad defense, but Taylor looked as if he belonged on an NFL field Thursday night.
What might be more telling is that he took the tough ending to Thursday’s game in stride. He didn’t mope or put the referees on blast at his locker after the game — as such, it’s hard to see him dragging any negative energy into the team’s preparation for the Cardinals next week.
Those are the kind of guys who can instill a positive culture in Santa Clara.
I can understand how it can be frustrating to 49ers fans, who labored through the season’s first two games and haven’t had much to cheer in the past few years, to come up short on Thursday. A win would have, no doubt, felt good.
But would the shortterm buzz from Thursday be worth it in March and April?
Every win that actually shows up in the standings this year hurts the 49ers chances to win in the years to come — in seasons where wins and losses actually matter — because it diminishes the 49ers chances of landing the quarterback (or offensive weapon) of their choosing in next spring’s draft.
Every win backs up the false notion that this 49ers’ roster, as currently constructed, is good enough. It isn’t. There’s all the reason in the world for the 49ers to tank this year — just so long as they’re not actively trying to lose on the field.
But with more offensive efforts like Thursday’s and defensive efforts like the ones shown in the first two games, this season, no matter how many losses it ends with, won’t be all for naught.
Embrace moral victories, 49ers fans — hopefully, they’re the only kinds of victories the team will have this year.