San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Another test to see if 49ers are ready for prime time
The last time the San Francisco 49ers were featured on Sunday night football, a massive national audience witnessed a Mile High nosedive.
The Niners stumbled, fumbled and bumbled their way to an 11-10 defeat to the similarly outof-sorts Denver Broncos, falling to 1-2 as tens of millions of viewers wondered in unison, “Can we get these three hours of our lives back?”
With apologies to “Saturday Night Live” pioneers John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris et al, the 49ers were the true “Not Ready For PrimeTime Players” on that early autumn evening, and Jimmy Garoppolo was unable to get the job done like a latterday Samurai Futaba.
Playing against a Broncos offense that had been universally clowned for its inefficiency, the Niners managed to look even more discombobulated than Russell Wilson and friends, getting the ball downfield with the efficiency of Nevada election officials counting ballots.
Five games and a bye week later, San Francisco (4-4) is back in the Sunday night spotlight. A game against the Los Angeles Chargers (5-3) at Levi’s Stadium gives the 49ers, at the very least, a chance to make a strong second impression via the highest-rated show on network television.
“We know all eyes are on us,” cornerback Charvarius (Mooney) Ward
told me Thursday. “Now it’s time for us to go on a roll and show the rest of the world what we’re capable of. I think we’re one of the best teams in the league. We’re ready to prove it.”
There are plenty of skeptics out there, and they have their reasons. When the 49ers have been good — for example, in their two games against the defending champion Los Angeles Rams — they’ve been January-2022-playoff-run good. However, they haven’t been that good that often, and their lack of consistency is a legitimate cause for concern.
Many of you watch the 49ers on a weekly basis and understand their journey, which included a blockbuster trade for Christian McCaffrey and, most recently, an emphatic demonstration of the multithreat running back’s potential for wrecking opposing defenses.
Maybe your buddies in Minnesota or Macedonia marveled at those McCaffrey highlights or saw Garoppolo’s impressive numbers in the Niners’ Oct. 30 victory over the Rams; however, they also saw a clip barrage of Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs running the 49ers out of their own stadium.
Now, fresh off a bye week, San Francisco has an opportunity to start the second half of its season with a splash. A tour de force performance against the Chargers, and an encore the following Monday night against the Arizona Cardinals in Mexico City, could rebrand the 2022 Niners as an A-list attraction.
“I just feel like we’re a better football team than 4-4,” tight end George Kittle said Wednesday. “But we’ve put ourselves in that position, so that’s on us. Hopefully someone will overlook us, but I don’t think they will — just look at our roster. I kind of wish we hadn’t had the bye week when we did, because we had just gotten it rolling. I don’t think that the steam’s gone at all, but we have to come out hot” against the Chargers.
The last time the 49ers waited all day for Sunday night, they face-planted. From Garoppolo stepping out of the end zone to the offense converting just 1 of 10 third downs to the defense allowing the embattled Wilson to mount a game-winning drive, their performance was forgettable and regrettable.
Granted, it was Jimmy G’s first start after a lost offseason, but he provided far more fodder for amateur lip-readers than he did faith in his ability to quarterback San Francisco to a championship.
“That was a night to forget,” said All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams, who suffered a sprained ankle on Garoppolo’s third-quarter safety and missed the next three games.
Added Pro Bowl fullback Kyle Juszczyk, “We didn’t play too well. Honestly, it hurts more when you give up a game like that, when you know there’s no doubt that we should have gotten the win.”
The Niners are only 1½ games behind the NFC Westleading Seahawks — a team they’ll face in a Thursday night clash on Dec. 15 — but they’re running out of shoulda, coulda wiggle room. A true championship contender can only have so many bad losses before reality sets in, and if the 49ers are who they think they are, this Sunday night would be an ideal time to drive home that message to the masses.
“It’s important,” Williams said, “because you’re on display for your peers, and for the world. It’s one of those games where you know the whole world’s watching, and it adds to the emotion.”
To Williams and many of his teammates, the prevailing emotion is anticipation. Coming off a rout of the rival Rams, followed by a week of rest, the refreshed Niners view their second Sunday night appearance as a potential springboard that could set them up to play in games with the highest ratings of all.
“We have so much on the table,” Juszczyk said. “It’s such a huge opportunity to continue to build on the momentum we have now and to propel ourselves going forward.”
Ward enthused, “I love Sunday night (football). I want to go out there and make plays and get a ‘dub,’ for the city and the fans and the team. We’ve got a good, physical, hardhitting defense, and our offense has been building and building — and it’s time to explode.
“We’re about to take off. It’s time.”
It’s prime time. We’ll soon find out if the 49ers are ready for it.