We should have seen it coming.
After all, the seeds of the 49ers’ incredible implosion against the Rams on Sunday, which dropped the defending NFC champions to 1-2 on the season, were sown this past offseason.
It wasn’t bad coaching decisions from Kyle Shanahan that undercut the Niners in the 27-24 loss.
Their quarterback, Brock Purdy, was exceptional on Sunday, too.
But if you believe the analytics, the Niners had, at multiple points, a 95 percent chance of winning their contest against the Rams.
They somehow found that other five percent. And they needed all three phases of the game—offense, defense, and special teams—to do it.
While it was a group effort in futility, Sunday’s loss really came down to two plays, made by two players who should never have been on the 49ers’ roster.
Two players that were in the game because of injuries to top options and bad planning from San Francisco’s front office.
The Niners might have lost this game in the final three minutes Sunday, but it was really lost in March and August.
That’s when the 49ers signed linebacker De’Vondre Cambell.
And that’s when the Niners kept Ronnie Bell on the team’s active roster.
Those two players were at the epicenter of Sunday’s implosion. Bell was the target of a pass play that should have won the game for the 49ers with 68 seconds remaining. Campbell was targeted by the Rams on the subsequent possession, setting up the game-winning field goal.
Why were they out there?
Because the 49ers had no other choice but to play them.
The Niners built a stars-and-scrubs roster for this season, using the same model they used last season. Only last season, the Niners one of the least injured teams in the NFL.
Obviously, the Niners are not twice lucky. Nothing has gone right for San Francisco in 2024. To think they would be after a run to the Super Bowl is to laugh in the face of history.
On offense, San Francisco was down their top three offensive weapons: Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, and George Kittle. Meanwhile, Brandon Aiyuk is still not playing at the same speed he displayed last season, a byproduct of missing training camp after months of contract disputes.
Aiyuk, you’ll remember, had not signed a new Niners contract the day NFL teams had to cut their rosters to 53 men. With Aiyuk not practicing, the Niners kept Bell — pick No. 253 in the 2023 draft — as a seventh wide receiver. They wanted another pass-catcher in case Aiyuk’s holdout continued (it lasted two more days), and Bell was deemed the best option even though he had a near-comical issue with drops in camp.
And Bell has remained on the roster amid injuries and Aiyuk’s sluggish start. Laying low is sometimes the right plan at work.
It turns out the Niners did need him this season. Amid all the injuries, he was the third option at receiver on Sunday.
He was targeted twice in the game. He dropped both passes, which were thrown right on his hands, in perfect position. The second drop took what could have — should have — been a game-winning play off the board.
Of course, a Bell drop wasn’t the only thing that did in the Niners.
The Niners controlled the game for hours, embarrassing their so-called rivals in their house and riling up a crowd where the red greatly outnumbered the blue.
In the end, the red team sang the blues, and the Niners were the team left feeling embarrassed.
And it all happened so fast. A field goal to give the Niners a two-possession lead with 2:48 to play was missed. The next snap, the Rams went 50 yards the other way, and the game was tied two plays later.
Then came Bell’s drop, wiping a 23-yard gain — that would have put the Niners in field-goal range to win the contest — off the board.
A sack and 38-yard punt return later, Campbell entered the picture.
The Rams had been attacking Campbell, the former All-Pro linebacker, in the passing game all contest. The Rams’ first touchdown, a 15-yard pass to running back Kyren Williams, was run directly at Campbell — there wasn’t an ounce of ambiguity about it.
They had seen the tape of the season’s first two games — they knew he couldn’t manage in the open field anymore. And Rams coach Sean McVay — perhaps the finest playcaller in the NFL — dialed up something diabolical when his team needed big yards fast.
He motioned out his tight end, Colby Parkinson, forcing Campbell to play one-on-one defense against him outside the right numbers. Campbell couldn’t keep up with Parkinson as he ran down the field, so he didn’t look back when the ball was thrown directly at him, resulting in an easy pass interference call.
It was 25 free yards, cashed in at the perfect time. The Rams kicked the game-winning field goal two snaps later.
Why was Campbell on the field as an easy target for McVay?
Because the Niners’ first-choice starting weak-side linebacker, Dre Greenlaw, tore his Achilles tendon in the Super Bowl and is sidelined until the second half of this season, at best.
Campbell is on this team because the 49ers didn’t draft well enough to have a go-to replacement for Greenlaw already on the roster.
He’s on the team because the first linebacker they signed in free agency — Eric Kendricks — balked at joining San Francisco after the Dallas Cowboys came in with a bigger, better offer after news leaked Kendricks and the Niners had agreed to a deal. Kendricks has 29 tackles through his first three games.
So the Niners went with Campbell, who was outplayed in training camp by Dee Winters but was given the job because of seniority. Winters, it must be noted, has also dealt with injuries recently.
All that, to be a sitting duck on a play that could well define the Niners’ season.
This isn’t to exonerate Jake Moody, who missed a 55-yard field that could have won the game with under three minutes to play. Nor is it to say that special teams coordinator Brian Fleury is doing a good job for San Francisco.
Countless plays did the Niners in on Sunday.
But the two biggest blunders came from two players that, frankly, should not have been on the field had the Niners’ front office done a better job.
The Niners have the quarterback to win big games. They have the head coach, too, even though forces I don’t understand and from which would like to distance myself have clearly cursed him.
And while the NFL is a league seemingly defined by those two roles, the fact remains it takes a full team to win or lose.
The Niners’ roster is simply not good enough, top to bottom, to believe they’ll repeat as NFC West champions, much less conference or Super Bowl champions.
If it isn’t the big, blow-up plays by second-or-third choice players, it’s the lack of quality play on the offensive line, or the defensive line, or the secondary, which is testing its depth after a poor start to the season.
And while some of those Niners’ stars will return in the weeks to come, making this team better in the process, others will miss time around that time, testing the roster in a new way.
The Niners built a top-heavy roster.
That means they banked on luck being on their side.
Clearly, that’s not the case.
To be 1-2 amid the stretch of the season where they should be racking up wins (the second half of their schedule is brutal) shows exactly how flawed that plan was.
Sunday’s game is the kind of contest that can define a season.
And for the injury-ravaged, down-on-their-luck Niners, that’s just another bit of bad news.
