Why this year’s 49ers were different — and oh-so-thrilling to watch
The pain on players’ faces. The eyes after the tears. The selfless flogging. The emotions.
It oozed from every 49ers player, and coach Kyle Shanahan, Jan. 30 after their season ended a win — a fourth quarter — short of the Super Bowl.
Such heartfelt feelings are not necessarily an annual ritual.
The 49ers have had 27 straight seasons end without a Lombardi Trophy. This was the most entertaining, dramatic and enjoyable one since I began covering them in 2000.
Jimmy Garoppolo was front and center at it all, from the instant he showed up after the draft brought in his heir apparent to the final throw that was intercepted. He handled it with class, when everyone demanded controversy, perfection and a Lombardi Trophy.
The NFL is a quarterback-driven league. This was a team that rallied around its quarterback, or its embattled cornerbacks, or its newfound All-pro catalyst in Deebo Samuel.
It was a team. And what a hoot it was the past three months.
Any ending other than a Super Bowl victory is crushing. Were they playing with house money each of the past few weeks?
Sure, but no one gave them anything.
They made it into the playoffs themselves by beating the (eventual NFC champion) Rams, on the road. Then they won a playoff debut in Dallas, barely. Then another playoff game, in the most picturesque setting possible in the NFL, amid the snow with a second-half comeback at storied Lambeau Field.
Lose any of those games and a shrug might suffice. Lose in the NFC Championship Game, as a 3 ½-point underdog? It should have been expected.
But to blow a 10-point, fourth-quarter lead was just a cruel reminder about the 49ers’ last playoff exit, their 2019 team’s Super Bowl collapse against the Kansas City Chiefs and their third-down, “2-3-jetchip-wasp” harbinger of doom.
Teammates consoled Jacquiski Tartt, who flogged himself for dropping a potential, win-clinching interception.
They defended Garoppolo, for perhaps their final, necessary time.
They each took ownership of not doing more, after someone each of the past 12 games or so did something unexpectedly phenomenal — as should be expected out of professional football players.
Covering a team like this usually evokes a neat connection among beat reporters and players, having traveled the same lands and witnessed the same highs and lows.
Only, the NFL locker room still bars reporters from entering, essentially serving as a bouncer between any true human interaction. That is why attending every possible practice, even if for only the allotted 20 or even 5 minutes, was crucial, to get a taste of what was evolving.
It began with expected victories in Detroit and
Philadelphia sandwiched around the annual teambonding layover, which included the Bay Area media’s inclusion for those practices at The Greenbrier in West Virginia’s Week 2 seclusion.
A four-game losing streak should have broken them. It would have cost Garoppolo his job, from what everyone prescribed in the preseason.
Instead, subtle changes took place at every position, from someone stepping up or shifting to a new spot.
The wins stacked up to the point the 49ers became the team no one wanted to play. No one except the Rams, to defend their $5.5 billion palace where the 49ers had won both of their prior regular-season visits.
The Rams, George Kittle made a point of saying afterward, are a team of superstars. That, at least to me, was a way to say the 49ers were more of a true team, rather than just a bunch of names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Another offseason has begun. The familiar pain of a premature exit is back.
Sunday’s Pro Bowl is a consolation prize for five players, though it’s unimaginable that Trent Williams and his bad ankle would play in that all-star buffoonery. Samuel, Kittle, Nick Bosa and Kyle Juszczyk are on the invitation list, and alternates could get summoned.
Now comes speculation season, starting with where Garoppolo will go, what the market will bear.
Does he fill the Pittsburgh Steelers’ void? Do new coaches in Denver, New Orleans, Houston, Miami and elsewhere want him? Can the 49ers cajole a Day 2 draft pick for the man who, more often than not since Halloween 2017, made them feel great, baby?
Having shipped their first-round pick (No. 29 overall) plus a thirdrounder to Miami as part of last season’s trade up
(for Trey Lance, Garoppolo’s successor, the combine and draft won’t be as alluring. Free agency won’t bear more than one or two highpriced starters. Extensions for Samuel and Bosa must be budgeted.
Bosa called this a “super special” team, and it was, adding: “I don’t think the era comes to an end. We have a lot to build off of this year and I’m proud of all the guys I play with.”
No one wanted to race ahead with those thoughts at the postgame podium, and that started with Shanahan saying it wasn’t time for a “farewell address” to Garoppolo.
Later, as Shanahan and general manager John Lynch walked out of the losing locker from Sunday night, they strolled across the confetti-strewn field, took a glance at the gigantic scoreboard and were reminded it was the Rams, not them, Super Bowlbound.
Pain. Again.
Lips are being bit. A Lombardi Trophy seemed within reach. And that is what made for so many conflicting emotions, because players and everyone involved with the 49ers wanted to take pride in this season’s resiliency and down-to-the-wire wins.
They eventually will feel better. They will make another run. They again will seek a storybook, championship ending.