The San Francisco 49ers have had an incredible season thus far, but the entire NFL world just witnessed them get pummelling by the top AFC contender in the Baltimore Ravens on Christmas night. Brock Purdy entered the game as the MVP favourite, but he exited the game far from that after throwing four interceptions and having his worst game as a starter in his brief career.
Lamar Jackson of the Ravens should win the NFL’s top individual award this year over Christian McCaffery after breaking into their home and beating them up. While the entire NFL blames Brock for the 49ers’ humiliating loss, there is a trend for head coach Kyle Shanahan.
Since 2017, Kyle Shanahan of the San Francisco 49ers is 0-38 in games in which his team is trailing entering the fourth quarter. Every other team in the NFL has a win in those circumstances, but Shanahan’s teams are basically a non-win team if you can be ahead by eight points going into the fourth quarter.
It wasn’t just Brock Purdy’s fault that the San Francisco 49ers were beaten.
Brock Purdy played by far the worst game of his career, throwing four interceptions and making poor judgements throughout. The game, however, emphasised much more than Purdy’s first terrible start as a starter in his short career. Shanahan’s teams are simply not good when down late in a game. The 49ers must figure this problem if they want to continue thrashing opponents throughout the playoffs.
You’ll be down at times in the playoffs, and you’ll need the intensity and culture to be a comeback team. Shanahan’s 0-38 record does not bode well, as history does not favour them when they lose games.
Shanahan didn’t appear concerned in his post-game press conference, stating that it was just a regular season game and that they still had all of their goals ahead of them. When the playoffs are right around the corner, you can’t drop too low in the regular season, according to Shanahan:
“Nothing I’m concerned about, but you know how stingers are and it could be worse tomorrow, but I think it’ll be alright.”
That is obviously the appropriate mindset to have as a head coach, but Shanahan must address this weakness of his teams personally, since there is a lot of data now to suggest that his teams do not make fourth-quarter comebacks. If you want to succeed, you must be a tenacious team.
