You don’t increase a banner for successful a Week 7 recreation within the NFL.
You don’t drop confetti or pop champagne for soccer video games in October, both.
But when the 49ers can win Sunday towards the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs, the emotional response from the gamers, coaches, and followers, will certainly be so celebratory, you’d assume there can be a parade down Market Road to commemorate the event.
You see, these 49ers have received all the things there may be to win within the NFL, save for the factor, a title.
Twice, they’ve performed for the last word prize. Twice, they’ve misplaced to the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs within the Tremendous Bowl, with each video games ending in excruciating vogue.
“That may give a little bit post-traumatic stress,” 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan mentioned this week. “I feel that’s human nature. However you’ve bought to ensure you don’t get caught up in that. This recreation has nothing to do with previous video games, that was final 12 months.”
However that’s all straightforward to say. It’s not really easy to do.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes are the Niners’ boogeymen. Collectively, they’re an all-time drive standing in the way in which of historical past, even perhaps future, for the Niners. It’s “human nature” for the Niners to construct this recreation into one thing extra.
Sure, one October recreation within the 17-game NFL can solely imply a lot.
However it doesn’t matter what they may say immediately, for the 49ers, this recreation towards the Chiefs on Sunday means all the things.
Final week, the Niners’ season was on the brink. This marketing campaign was alleged to be one other rampage for the Niners, who arguably boast probably the most gifted roster within the league. A playoff berth was assured from the beginning, leaving the Niners maybe one, perhaps two robust video games earlier than one other shot on the Tremendous Bowl.
In a league the place everybody preaches going week-to-week, the 49ers, with their Professional-Bowl-laden roster, had been considering month-to-month.
However then there was an underwhelming offseason and a chaotic coaching camp. Accidents and errors began to pile up. The Niners had been 2-3 after 5 video games, desperately needing a win in a short-week, Thursday contest in Seattle.
The Niners saved their season there. San Francisco is again at even footing on the marketing campaign, solely a bit worse for put on.
However whereas final week’s recreation was very important to the Niners’ place within the standings, this week is all about perception.
It’s the rarely-discussed, impossible-to-quantify issue that decides soccer video games and seasons. It holds groups collectively, even when instances are adversarial. It could possibly take good groups and make them nice.
And perception is earned.
With final week’s win, the Niners can as soon as once more fairly imagine that they’ll be within the combine for an additional journey to the Tremendous Bowl. They will purchase into the long-held perception they’re one of many NFL’s finest groups.
However going to the Tremendous Bowl isn’t the workforce’s aim.
No, the aim is to win it.
And it’s troublesome to think about a universe the place the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs — winners of back-to-back titles and three of the final 5 championships, who’re 5-0 on this season — aren’t the opponent within the massive recreation.
At this juncture — 0-for-4, 0-for-2 with the title on the road — the Niners’ confidence that they’ll defeat the Chiefs is embattled, at finest.
One other loss and it may be misplaced for good.
And that would go away the Niners in a darkish place for the rest of the season.
The Niners know the way necessary this recreation is—they had been concerned in a special pivotal, emotional affair final season.
San Francisco misplaced to the Philadelphia Eagles within the 2022 NFC Championship Sport after then-rookie quarterback Brock Purdy’s elbow was injured midway via the primary quarter of that contest. However the Niners had been satisfied they might have received that contest had their beginning quarterback been in a position to throw a soccer. That they had no drawback making such claims on the report.
And after the Eagles misplaced that subsequent Tremendous Bowl to — who else? — Kansas Metropolis, it arrange an enormous recreation between Philadelphia and San Francisco final December. All of the yapping and what-ifs would come to a head in that regular-season showdown for convention supremacy.
Each groups held up their ends of the discount for months. The Eagles entered the sport using excessive — 10-1 on the season. The Niners had been at 8-3, having righted the ship from a mid-season three-game dropping streak.
And after a shaky begin to the sport, the Niners put a beat-down on the house workforce for 3 of probably the most dominant quarters you’ll ever see—closing rating: Niners 42, Eagles 19.
The Niners backed up their braggadocio. They then knew, deep down, that they had been untouchable within the convention. (That overconfidence practically burned them within the NFC Playoffs.)
The Eagles, in the meantime, exploded into 1,000,000 items. The workforce completely restructured its teaching workers, went 1-5 for the rest of the common season, and was blown out within the first spherical of the playoffs. ESPN reported that the Eagles’ quarterback and head coach—the 2 most necessary positions within the sport—had a “fractured” relationship.
There’s no proof the Eagles have recovered this season, both.
Sunday’s might have the same impact for the Niners.
Sure, it might swing towards the constructive. If the Niners win, all the things they ever imagined this season might convey — particularly, a Lombardi Trophy — is mentally again on the desk. In case your workforce can beat the champions, there’s no motive to doubt that your workforce could be the champions.
And if the Niners lose? Effectively, a season that’s been a tinderbox since final February might discover an igniting spark.
You may solely study a lesson so many instances earlier than you internalize it, in spite of everything. For the 49ers, it could be, “We are able to’t beat these guys.” And if the Niners don’t imagine they’ll beat the Chiefs, what’s the purpose of preventing via all these accidents, taking over this brutal schedule, and grinding away day after day?
The Niners have constructed up the 2024 marketing campaign to the place the one worthwhile end result is a title. These title desires might come crashing down in mid-October.
So sure, solely a win or a loss will come from Sunday’s contest — this is only one of 17.
However the remainder of the Niners season will journey the momentum this recreation created.
The one query now could be whether or not it’s going to elevate the 49ers up or take them down.
