You don’t raise a banner for winning a Week 7 game in the NFL.
You don’t drop confetti or pop champagne for football games in October, either.
But if the 49ers can win Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs, the emotional response from the players, coaches, and fans, will surely be so celebratory, you’d think there will be a parade down Market Street to commemorate the occasion.
You see, these 49ers have won everything there is to win in the NFL, save for the thing, a title.
Twice, they’ve played for the ultimate prize. Twice, they’ve lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl, with both games ending in excruciating fashion.
“That can give a little post-traumatic stress,” 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said this week. “I think that’s human nature. But you’ve got to make sure you don’t get caught up in that. This game has nothing to do with past games, that was last year.”
But that’s all easy to say. It’s not so easy to do.
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Chiefs coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes are the Niners’ boogeymen. Together, they’re an all-time force standing in the way of history, perhaps even destiny, for the Niners. It’s “human nature” for the Niners to build this game into something more.
Yes, one October game in the 17-game NFL can only mean so much.
But no matter what they might say today, for the 49ers, this game against the Chiefs on Sunday means everything.
Last week, the Niners’ season was on the brink. This campaign was supposed to be another rampage for the Niners, who arguably boast the most talented roster in the league. A playoff berth was assured from the start, leaving the Niners perhaps one, maybe two tough games before another shot at the Super Bowl.
In a league where everyone preaches going week-to-week, the 49ers, with their Pro-Bowl-laden roster, were thinking month-to-month.
But then there was an underwhelming offseason and a chaotic training camp. Injuries and mistakes started to pile up. The Niners were 2-3 after five games, desperately needing a win in a short-week, Thursday contest in Seattle.
The Niners saved their season there. San Francisco is back at even footing on the campaign, only a bit worse for wear.
But while last week’s game was vital to the Niners’ place in the standings, this week is all about belief.
It’s the rarely-discussed, impossible-to-quantify factor that decides football games and seasons. It holds teams together, even when times are adversarial. It can take good teams and make them great.
And belief is earned.
With last week’s win, the Niners can once again reasonably believe that they’ll be in the mix for another trip to the Super Bowl. They can buy into the long-held belief they’re one of the NFL’s best teams.
But going to the Super Bowl is not the team’s goal.
No, the goal is to win it.
And it’s difficult to imagine a universe where the Kansas City Chiefs — winners of back-to-back titles and three of the last five championships, who are 5-0 on this season — aren’t the opponent in the big game.
At this juncture — 0-for-4, 0-for-2 with the title on the line — the Niners’ confidence that they can defeat the Chiefs is embattled, at best.
Another loss and it might be lost for good.
And that would leave the Niners in a dark place for the remainder of the season.
The Niners know how important this game is—they were involved in a different pivotal, emotional affair last season.
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San Francisco lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in the 2022 NFC Championship Game after then-rookie quarterback Brock Purdy’s elbow was injured halfway through the first quarter of that contest. But the Niners were convinced they would have won that contest had their starting quarterback been able to throw a football. They had no problem making such claims on the record.
And after the Eagles lost that subsequent Super Bowl to — who else? — Kansas City, it set up a big game between Philadelphia and San Francisco last December. All the yapping and what-ifs would come to a head in that regular-season showdown for conference supremacy.
Both teams held up their ends of the bargain for months. The Eagles entered the game riding high — 10-1 on the season. The Niners were at 8-3, having righted the ship from a mid-season three-game losing streak.
And after a shaky start to the game, the Niners put a beat-down on the home team for three of the most dominant quarters you will ever see—final score: Niners 42, Eagles 19.
The Niners backed up their braggadocio. They then knew, deep down, that they were untouchable in the conference. (That overconfidence nearly burned them in the NFC Playoffs.)
The Eagles, meanwhile, exploded into a million pieces. The team totally restructured its coaching staff, went 1-5 for the remainder of the regular season, and was blown out in the first round of the playoffs. ESPN reported that the Eagles’ quarterback and head coach—the two most important positions in the sport—had a “fractured” relationship.
There’s no evidence the Eagles have recovered this season, either.
Sunday’s could have a similar effect for the Niners.
Yes, it could swing toward the positive. If the Niners win, everything they ever imagined this season could bring — specifically, a Lombardi Trophy — is mentally back on the table. If your team can beat the champions, there’s no reason to doubt that your team can be the champions.
And if the Niners lose? Well, a season that’s been a tinderbox since last February could find an igniting spark.
You can only learn a lesson so many times before you internalize it, after all. For the 49ers, it would be, “We can’t beat these guys.” And if the Niners don’t believe they can beat the Chiefs, what’s the point of fighting through all these injuries, taking on this brutal schedule, and grinding away day after day?
The Niners have built up the 2024 campaign to where the only worthwhile outcome is a title. Those title dreams could come crashing down in mid-October.
So yes, only a win or a loss will come from Sunday’s contest — this is just one of 17.
But the rest of the Niners season will ride the momentum this game created.
The only question now is whether it will lift the 49ers up or take them down.