George Kittle #85 of the San Francisco 49ers runs off the field with a turkey after a game against the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field on November 23, 2023 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
SANTA CLARA — There’s a strange mood around the 49ers’ facility following Sunday’s win against the Eagles.
Maybe it’s the rain, but the general buzz that usually permeates the grounds has calmed. There’s a pensiveness in the building.
It’s as if everyone is asking “What now?”
That’s understandable, right? The 49ers circled last Sunday’s game with the Eagles when the NFL schedule was released. Amid so many other goals, the 49ers prioritized beating Philadelphia in Philly.
Then they did it — emphatically.
The Germans probably have a big, compound, crazy-sounding word for the feeling after the glee of achieving a long-sought goal fades.
Here in the good ol’ USA, we call it a letdown.
And in the NFL, that feeling usually proceeds something the Germans don’t have a word for:
A trap game.
But that, of course, raises another question:
Is it still a trap game if everyone sees it coming?
Oh, and here’s another question: Is it still an arch-rivalry if the contest is also a let-down spot?
Games against the Seahawks used to be the highlight of the Niners’ schedule. At the very least, they were games that didn’t require extra motivation to play.
But four consecutive San Francisco wins later — including back-to-back blowouts — and the Niners are being asked how they psych themselves up Sunday’s game at Levi’s Stadium.
Luckily for San Francisco, they have already learned how not to handle such a situation this season.
In Week 5, the Niners put a beat-down on the Cowboys, 42-10.
The Niners proceeded to lose their next three games.
Injuries were undoubtedly part of the formula there, but so was hubris.
As Niners coach Kyle Shanahan said that at the time, his team started to believe they were as good as everyone said they were. Confidence is important, but it can also breed complacency.
And complacency is death in the NFL.
Seattle is fighting for its playoff life. They’re coming in, having last played in November.
Meanwhile, the 49ers can clinch a playoff spot with three games to play on Sunday and are 10-plus-point favorites.
And if this isn’t a let-down game, I don’t know what is.
Yes, the Niners should win, but “should” isn’t worth a thing in pro sports.
“I think that’s the hardest thing about this league. You go through such high emotions, like last week, beating Philly, and then two days later, you have to completely wash it and focus on the next game,” Fred Warner said Wednesday. “We know what happened we played an NFC East team pretty good… You either learn from your past mistakes or you let history repeat itself.”
A nice sentiment, but one that needs to be backed up on the field.
If the Niners’ focus is, indeed, in the right spot, there’s another question at hand this week:
Sunday will be the 15th time the 49ers have played Pete Carroll’s Seahawks since Shanahan took over as the Niners head coach in 2017. With that level of familiarity, does preparing for Seattle become easier or harder?
Shanahan said easier (in so many words):
“I mean, they’ve changed coordinators a number of times. I think easier would be the wrong word. I think we both understand how our teams are going to be. So, you don’t have to overcomplicate things too much.
[But] I guess when you don’t overcomplicate things it makes it easier, but it’s not as in either of us are easy to go against. We just… I know what we’re going to get from them and I think they know what they’re going to get from us and that’s why it’s going to be a battle.” ”
For Warner, it’s harder because of the game within the game:
“It’s almost harder, honestly, in that they’re very similar to what we do, and you’re not sure if they’re going to make adjustments on what happened last game… You’re never exactly sure how they’re going to come out and attack us.”
Ok, we don’t have clarity there, but there is one unassailable point heading into Sunday’s game:
The Niners — who have won nine straight regular-season games in December and January — need to keep winning if they want to land the NFC’s No. 1 seed.
So forget about traps, let-downs, and German words.
Sunday’s showdown with the Seahawks is a winter game amid a Super Bowl hunt.
There’s nothing lesser about it.
Originally published at Dieter Kurtenbach