Your daily San Francisco 49ers news for Saturday, December 14th, 2024
Kyle Shanahan reflects on 49ers’ Week 15 loss vs. Rams, provides De’Vondre Campbell update
“San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan spoke with reporters during a conference call on Friday, the day after the team’s 12-6 loss to the Los Angeles Rams. Here’s everything he said.”
“The most obvious move would be to outright release Campbell, making him an unrestricted free agent and free to sign with another team immediately. There are, however, other options the Niners can explore, such as a suspension without pay for conduct detrimental to the team.
Campbell signed a one-year, $5 million contract with the Niners in March, meaning he will again be an unrestricted free agent after the season regardless of what the 49ers decide to do now.”
Kyle Shanahan explains how 49ers will handle De’Vondre Campbell situation
“Shanahan was even clearer later and said he expects Campbell to be gone by next week. The 49ers will decide whether to suspend Campbell or cut him. The decision will likely be a financial one, based on what avenues the 49ers have available to them.”
“But that’s the reality. It was not one thing for the 49ers. There was a plethora of suck. They were not as talented or as brilliant as they thought and they were certainly not healthy enough or in-tune on either end to make up for their glaring deficiencies elsewhere.
The preseason had red flags, and anyone paying real attention to how this season developed heeded those warnings. The final three games are a real chance for evaluation and, hopefully, experimentation. The 49ers should let loose. They’re seniors in the final three weeks of school.”
“Campbell’s actions stood in sharp contrast to Greenlaw, who looked like the best player on either team at the start of the contest.
He was in on the 49ers’ first tackle of the game and had seven more in the first half. The only 49er who finished with more tackles was Warner, who tied a career high with 15 stops.
“He’s probably my favorite teammate to ever play with, college and pros,” Bosa said of Greenlaw. “He’s an absolute dog and he was killing it. To come, after a year of not playing, and then look like that — it was pretty impressive.”
Thompson: Deebo Samuel’s drop drove the last nail into a 49ers team in need of a retool (paywall)
“Yeah, this one was a collective effort. Kyle Shanahan’s play calling, Purdy’s missed throws, the defense’s late-game matadoring — everyone played a part in this procession.
But nothing encapsulates this whole campaign better than Deebo declaring on social media he needs the ball more only to not make the play when his number’s called. Just last year, the offense couldn’t top 17 points without him. Thursday, they couldn’t score a touchdown with him.
As with Samuel, the 49ers were impossible to watch this season without wondering if their best was exhausted the last two seasons. As with Samuel, the 49ers looked as if all the wins, all the playoff games, all the broken tackles and yards after catch, all the fierce hits, all the intense third downs and high-leverage drives, finally took their toll.”
This 49ers season is effectively over — and Kyle Shanahan bears plenty of responsibility (paywall)
“After Thursday’s game, Ward opened up to me about the trauma he and his family have endured, doing his best to affirm his commitment to his teammates while acknowledging that football isn’t the preeminent force in his life right now.
“It’s been hard for me personally to go to work every day, every game — even to practice or go to meetings,” he admitted. “I almost left a couple of times. S—, I know fans probably hate me (for saying that), but f— it, it’s real life. It’s bigger than football. This is the hardest time of my life for sure.”
In that context, a football team’s lost season pales in comparison. Yet falling short still hurts. Players and coaches channel an extreme amount of energy, intensity and devotion for the cause, and when they don’t reach their goals, they grieve. And that’s especially true for the head coach.
In the coming weeks and months, Shanahan will have to be real with himself as he reckons with how it all went wrong, and how he and Lynch can try to make it right in 2025, and in the years that follow.”
Branch: 49ers’ game review: When it was needed the most, defense fell apart (paywall)
The situation: They were trailing the Rams 9-6 in the fourth quarter on Thursday night, but Los Angeles was facing 3rd-and-4 at the 49ers’ 32-yard line at the two-minute warning and the 49ers had two timeouts left.
Wide receiver Cooper Kupp, aligned on the right side, went in motion before the snap. That shouldn’t have been a surprise. The Rams entered the game using motion on 82.9% of their snaps, the highest rate in the NFL.
However, the 49ers, who were coming out of a timeout, responded to Kupp’s movement as if it were novel. Both cornerback Deommodore Lenoir and safety Talanoa Hufanga followed Kupp across the field, with Hufanga motioning for linebacker Fred Warner, who was lined up against Demarcus Robinson in the slot, to move outside to cover Kupp.
The result? Warner covered Kupp, which is a massive mismatch, and Lenoir didn’t respond by covering Robinson, who was left all alone beyond the first-down sticks at the 25-yard line as a result. But Stafford didn’t throw to Robinson because he had another no-one-is-near-him pass catcher available. Tight end Colby Parkinson was left unguarded in the right slot, the area Hufanga and Lenoir had abandoned, and Stafford completed a 14-yard pass to Parkinson as Hufanga futilely tried to sprint back into position.”
Kawakami: A quitter, a dropped pass, and the last bitter loss of the 49ers’ season (paywall)
“I haven’t lost anybody,” Shanahan said. “That’s somebody who doesn’t want to play football. That’s pretty simple. I think our team, and myself, we know how we feel about that, so I don’t think we need to talk about him anymore.”
Shanahan, Kittle, and several other 49ers players were so angry about Campbell that you could almost feel the vibration in the air while they spoke. It was absolutely discussed in the locker room immediately after this game and, if you take the 49ers’ words to heart, possibly already taken care of.
The contrast was too obvious: Campbell’s surrender was the opposite of what the 49ers believe in as competitors. And Greenlaw getting the start and barreling his way to 8 tackles in the first half was the essence of the 49ers’ best stuff.”