Lady luck lands a heavy blow to title hopes
PHILADELPHIA — The San Francisco 49ers’ glorious ride came to an abrupt halt on Sunday afternoon. And unlike some other harsh endings, there was nowhere to point fingers, no blame to be assigned, except perhaps to that cruel mistress, Lady Luck.
“Life just punches you in the face sometimes,” tight end George Kittle said.
On Sunday, the 49ers got punched in the face, over and over. They lost the NFC Championship 31-7, in a game that felt over almost before it ever began. It was perhaps the most forgettable championship game of their league-record 18.
Kyle Shanahan summed up the day.
“We lost our last quarterback,” said the head coach, his eyes glistening with emotion.
On their first possession of the game, the 49ers lost their fairy tale-come-true quarterback Brock Purdy to an elbow injury. And then, on the first possession of the third quarter, they lost their backup Josh Johnson to a concussion.
That was pretty much that. The 49ers’ 20th game of the season provided a weird symmetry to how the season began, with the 49ers trying to make a quarterback transition to Trey Lance. But they lost their QB1 in Week 2, went to QB2 in Jimmy Garoppolo, who went down with an injury in early December. Purdy jumped in the saddle and rode to the NFC Championship Game. And in the final game of the 49ers’ season, both QB3 and QB4 were injured.
That’s a lot of bad luck.
“I wish we had a little bit better opportunity,” Shanahan said.
This game will be unfairly lumped into the Shanahan-can’t win-the-big-one bucket, which is silly. Shanahan’s coaching got the 49ers to the big game with a rookie quarterback and then they got whacked with terrible luck. This game should forever carry an asterisk:* No healthy quarterbacks available for the second half.
In that way, it was a little reminiscent of the 49ers’ attempt to win in Green Bay in the divisional playoffs in 1997, when Steve Young tried to play with broken ribs (courtesy of the Eagles) and lasted just two possessions before being replaced by Elvis Grbac. Or when the 2019 Warriors lost after Klay Thompson went down in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, a game after the team had lost Kevin Durant.
But the Warriors were coming off winning three titles in four seasons. And the ’96 49ers were just two years removed from a Super Bowl championship.
This 49ers team was attempting to end a long and frustrating drought. On the 28th anniversary of their last Super Bowl championship, they were trying to win to get back to another Super Bowl. And once there, at long last, win a sixth one.
The 49ers’ players themselves don’t care much about that “Quest for Sixth” or the historic context of their drive. They know better than anyone that the NFL is hard. That careers are short. That you must seize the moment when you can.
“This is the best group I’ve been around,” defensive end Nick Bosa said. “When stuff like this happens, it’s pretty much out of your control.
“But the thing about the NFL is you never have the same group. It’s just sad that this exact group doesn’t get another day together.”
The game felt off from the start. You could say that maybe the week felt off from the start after defensive lineman Charles Omenihu was arrested on Monday, the day after the team beat Dallas, on suspicion of misdemeanor domestic violence. Shanahan said the player would play while the legal process played out. At the very least, it was a bad omen.
On the second play of the game, linebacker Fred Warner was injured — though he came back and played. In the first quarter, Bosa got spiked while standing on the sideline during a punt, saying an Eagles cleat went an inch or two into his calf.
“That was the sign of a rough day,” Bosa said.
The game turned early on two calls, and the issue of coach’s challenges. The Eagles converted on 4th-and-3 with a 29-yard reception that replays later showed was not a reception. They went downfield and quick-snapped the next play; Shanahan said neither he nor anyone in the 49ers’ booth saw a replay that showed it wasn’t a catch. He didn’t want to burn a timeout a few minutes into the game. By the time the Eagles took a 7-0 lead, the replays were conclusive that the drive should have ended back at the 35-yard line.
On the ensuing 49ers possession, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni challenged an incomplete pass on the play Purdy was injured. It was successful: the call was overturned and ruled a fumble.
So, two possessions, two huge officiating calls. The officiating was questionable the rest of the way: the 49ers were flagged 11 times for 81 yards and the Eagles got hit with four penalties.
But officiating and challenges were not going to change the outcome of this game for the 49ers. Not when they were left with zero actual quarterbacks and trying to get running back Christian McCaffrey and fullback Kyle Juszczyk ready for emergency fill-in duty.
Purdy knew he was seriously injured as soon as he was hit, with shooting pain down his throwing arm. He couldn’t throw deep. Yet he had to come back in and hand off the ball to keep the 49ers actually playing. Kittle estimated the 49ers’ playbook was reduced to about 15 plays. The Eagles knew the 49ers couldn’t throw so they loaded the box and smothered the run.
“Our message was just ‘F it,’” Kittle said. “What are you going to do? Roll over and die?”
It wasn’t the ending the 49ers had dreamed of or expected. They had won 12 straight games and unlike last year, when they had to claw through a final regular-season game and into overtime to make the postseason, they felt aligned and ready.
They had momentum. They had as good a team as they’ve had in recent years. They had a fairy tale story in their quarterback, poised to head to a Super Bowl in his home state.
And then Lady Luck punched them in mouth. Hard.