Sunday Mourning Outlook: Why 49ers Latest Super Bowl Loss Feels Like a Funeral for their Championship Window

It's taken me a week to really gather my thoughts from the 49ers third Super Bowl loss. The Chiefs are the ultimate "don't let them hang around" opponent, and the 49ers let them hang around.

A forced a fumble and a rookie intercepting Patrick Mahomes should have been enough from the defense, but the 49ers couldn't get out of their own way. I think that's what was most infuriating. So many things had to go wrong, and they all did.

Christian McCaffrey, the team's undoubted MVP for the entire season, fumbles on the opening drive. An atrociously bad omen that would symbolize Super Bowl LVIII. The 49ers fumbled this game away.

Dre Greenlaw, who was flying across the field, made the world know that he showed up to play. Then a familiar ominous presence the 49ers held off longer than they usually do this season came back to rear its ugly head. The injury Grim Reaper came to take Greenlaw away early in the 2nd quarter when he tore his achilles running onto the field. It was here that I understood the 49ers would have to win a war, in which the only way to win was to overwhelm their opponent. They underwhelmed, playing mediocre offensive football.

Another ghost of 49ers past, the ghost of Kyle Williams, came to haunt them. Another forced punt travels from the Chiefs 25 to the 49ers 25, and on the fly, the ball hits the leg of the gunner. Ball is up for grabs. Ray Ray McCloud gets his hand on it, ignores football 101 by not falling on the ball, lets it and the entire Super Bowl slip through his fingers, giving Mahomes and the Chiefs the ball on the 49ers 16. One play later, Mahomes finds Marquez Valdez-Scantling for a touchdown, giving the Chiefs a 13-10 lead.

What I think is most infuriating about this game is that the 49ers responded on the very next drive with a touchdown to Jauan Jennings, who would have ridden his ultra rare non-quarterback throwing touchdown stat into a Super Bowl MVP had the 49ers held on. But no, the 49ers are never allowed to have nice things, at least since 1995, because Jake Moody gets his PAT blocked, giving the Chiefs a massive break only having to kick a field goal to tie rather than have to score a touchdown to take the lead.

The 49ers just need a PAT to go up four, forcing the Chiefs to score a touchdown.

The kick got blocked. Not Moody's fault. Absolutely unacceptable, disaster timing on the special teams' gaffes that gave the Chiefs exactly what they needed to stay in the game. Not only did Moody nail the longest field goal in Super Bowl history from 55 yards to open the scoring, but his 53 yarder to take the lead late in the 4th quarter made him the first kicker in Super Bowl history to hit multiple 50 yard kicks in the same game.

Then Mahomes does what Mahomes does, being an inevitable force to tie the game to send it to overtime. Easy enough for Mahomes, all he needed was a field goal.

This is where my dreams will be haunted forever as a 49ers fan. The 49ers elect to receive, which means that Mahomes will get the ball second, with a chance to win, knowing they are in 4-down territory. If Shanahan had studied the rules or understands that giving Mahomes four downs on a drive is football suicide, he probably would have deferred. Instead, the 49ers take the ball, Spencer Burford misses the biggest block of his entire life, leading to a free rusher right in Brock Purdy's lap. If there had been any delay on the free rusher, Purdy would have hit Brandon Aiyuk who broke the defensive back's ankles and was wide open in the middle of the end zone for a touch down. Instead, Purdy has to throw the ball away and settle for a field goal in the red zone, because, you know, the 49ers still have to defend and aren't in 4-down territory.

Mahomes inevitably threw a walk off touchdown to end Super Bowl LVIII. Confetti rains down again on a 49ers team in white. The Chiefs are celebrate, wearing red.

The once again are the bridesmaid and not the bride, left in tears heartbroken as the confetti feels more like raining garbage than the symbol of the pinnacle for the victors.

The 49ers were in position to end their quest for six the entire game. They couldn't stop shooting themselves in the foot.

Injuries including to George Kittle and Deebo Samuel that severely limited their performance, fumbles by McCaffrey and the not so special teams unit, a missed PAT, and overall squandering many opportunities to put up points when the defense had done an excellent limiting Mahomes and making Kansas City punt.

The loss felt like a death in my 49ers fandom that has been defined by ending the season by slicing my chest open, savagely shoving a fist in my open wound, and ripping my heart out through my broken ribcage and torn ligaments. It stung then, and it still does now. I felt a callous blanket over my chest wound, numbing me to the third Super Bowl loss in my lifetime. I don't have any memories of the five happy endings to make me feel any better.

This loss felt like finally, after so many near death experiences, the kill shot for this team in this era of 49ers football. I truly believe that the 49ers team as we know it, led by Kyle Shanahan and the core of Fred Warner, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Nick Bosa, and Arik Armstead, will never be the same amid looming changes.

How many times can the message of the power of positivity last before they fall on deaf ears? After so many gut wrenching, soul crushing losses, how do you remain positive? This game will never heal for guys like Kittle and Warner, and all the other players who were there for Super Bowl LIV. This is the type of game that can destroy a locker room, and it's up to the captains to make sure that doesn't happen.

Only three teams ever lost a Super Bowl and won it the very net season. The 1970 Cowboys who lost Super Bowl V and won Super Bowl VI, the 1971 Miami Dolphins who lost Super Bowl VI to the Cowboys and followed that up with their historic perfect season with a Super Bowl VII win, and the 2017 New England Patriots who were led by Tom Brady to beat the Rams for the franchise's sixth Lombardi trophy.

The 49ers will likely run back a similar team, but Dre Greenlaw will likely miss the entire season. A torn achilles is usually a 9-12 month recovery, meaning the absolute earliest he could come back is November, but it'll be more likely he could return during or after the post season. A huge loss for the defense.

The 49ers have key pieces entering free agency that will need to be replaced, like defensive lineman Chase Young, Clelin Ferrell, Randy Gregory, and Javon Kinlaw. In the secondary, Tashaun Gipson may retire. Jauan Jennings made himself more money with his performance in the Super Bowl, feeding into the likelihood that the 49ers lose one of their most clutch offensive players as well.

Talanoa Hufanga should return barring no setbacks, but the entire defense will need to be retooled, and with Steve Wilks' firing, who will be their defensive coordinator? The 49ers find themselves in a transitionary period that may prove too difficult to solve for the upcoming season which is a dagger, because next year is the last year before major changes will have to be made.

After next season, Brock Purdy will cash in on an earned contract, which is tough for the salary cap because if Dak Prescott makes $40 million a year, Purdy should make more based on his superior play. Brandon Aiyuk's already having contract drama after people close to him said they don't know if he'll even play with the 49ers this season after having an incredible year.

If not now, then when, if ever? This version of the 49ers has an expiration date, this upcoming season. After this year, with the money owed to Nick Bosa, Warner, Purdy's upcoming payday, if you keep Aiyuk, extending McCaffrey, Hufanga's upcoming contract, the 49ers are going to owe a lot of people a lot of money, and they won't be able to keep everyone. Players that fans truly love will likely be gone in the 2025 season.

The 49ers hopes at keeping their window open beg at the mercy of Brock Purdy. Can he elevate his game, become a guy who can be the main focus of attack for the offense, the guy that wins them games they should lose by putting the team on his back, the guy that is a stone cold killer who refuses to let the 49ers lose another game like this last Super Bowl?

I personally really like Purdy and believe in him as a quarterback. I think he will be even better next season after he gets an offseason to hone his craft rather than fix his exploded elbow. I personally think the Aiyuk drama will fade, and John Lynch figures out his contract quicker than Bosa's, who admitted the contract negotiations impacted his play this season.

It really felt like a Buffalo Bills situation where if Scott Norwood hadn't missed wide right, the Bills probably have not one but multiple championships. Instead, they were left with four straight Super Bowl losses and still chase Lombardi to this day.

Is this punishment for the 49ers after they won their first five Super Bowl appearances? Is this the fall out from a deal with the devil, that like Sisyphus the 49ers will roll their rock close to the top of the mountain just for it to fall back down and have to try again for eternity? It really felt like after the comeback against Detroit with Aiyuk's ladybug catch, and exercising their comeback demons that this was their year.

Despite my complete faith in Purdy, the Super Bowl hangover is real. Only Tom Brady was able to conquer that since the early 1970's, so assuming the 49ers could do that while also knowing the Chiefs will improve what was their worst roster in the Mahomes era seems doubtful.

Yet, I've been wrong about the fate of the 49ers so many times before. I thought they were going to win this year. Maybe the 49ers can prove me wrong again, because I'm doubting they win it all next year and because of the unfortunate timing of that, I think their window just closed until further notice, but who's to say Shanahan won't open it again later in the decade? It will be fascinating to see how the 49ers play out for the rest of the 2020's, but be prepared for more disappointment to conclude that story.