The only real competition in the San Francisco 49ers’ 38-10 loss in Green Bay on Sunday was which was worse, the 49ers’ offense or defense.
It was a heck of a battle.
On one hand, you had a 49ers offense that ran just six plays through the first quarter and a half, lost two fumbles and mustered a season-low 44 rushing yards.
Then again, the defensive players let at least two would-be interceptions slip through their hands and spent the first quarter bouncing off Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs as if he were Jim Brown incarnate. Jacobs finished with three, 1-yard touchdowns, had 91 rushing yards by halftime and became the first running back to rush for more than 100 yards — he had 106 — against the 49ers this season.
“That’s about as bad as it can get,” said linebacker Fred Warner. “Probably the worst I’ve been a part of.”
To put that quote in perspective, Warner was part of a 49ers team that went 4-12 in 2018 and a 2020 team that was 6-10.
The 49ers had some good excuses for dropping this one considering they were missing their starting quarterback, Brock Purdy, top edge rusher, Nick Bosa, and best offensive lineman, Trent Williams. Largely because of that, San Francisco entered the game as regular-season underdogs for the first time since 2022, a string of 36 contests.
With those players absent, it would take a sharp effort to beat a Packers team that was 7-3 entering the game. Instead, the 49ers got off to their worst start in recent memory. The defense couldn’t tackle. The offense couldn’t run the ball — it had 3 rushing yards at halftime. And quarterback Brandon Allen, making his first start in three seasons, was off-kilter.
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“It took me a minute to get back into it,” Allen acknowledged. “So we started slowly, which didn’t help. It didn’t help our defense at all.”
The Packers, who lost the last two meetings to the 49ers, certainly were in no mood to give their opponents a break for missing some of their star players.
“It’s the NFL. It’s not an excuse,” cornerback Keisean Nixon said afterward. “We didn’t have our quarterback. We won three games, so we don’t wanna hear that. We came to play. They should’ve came to play.”
To his credit, Allen eventually warmed up, leading the 49ers on an 11-play drive at the end of the second quarter that culminated with a back-of-the-end zone strike to George Kittle.
George Kittle ladies and gents.
📺 #SFvsGB on FOX
NFL+ // https://t.co/KTh0i4nCVJ pic.twitter.com/YVJGOBSIy9— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) November 24, 2024
Around that point, the defense started to stiffen as well, and for roughly a quarter, it looked as if the 49ers might be able to claw their way back into the contest. Nine San Francisco penalties, however, contributed to stalled drives and the defense had no takeaways despite Packers quarterback Jordan Love, who threw for just 163 yards, giving them opportunities.
“It’s something I try to emphasize every single week,” Kittle said. “What are your goals for victory? Hold onto the ball, run the ball a ton and don’t turn the ball over. I don’t think we did any of those three things tonight. I think that’s why we lost like that.”
Perhaps most distressing of all is that the 49ers continue to get fizzling performances from players who have been reliably explosive in recent seasons.
Of the 49ers’ eight team captains this season, only Kittle had a good outing. He caught 6 of 6 targets for a game-high 82 yards, and his touchdown catch in the second quarter was his team-best eighth of the season. He also was the only pass catcher who seemed in sync with Allen, catching a high-degree-of-difficulty back-shoulder pass in the third quarter.
“I thought Brandon was great,” Kittle said. “He was good in the huddle — spoke loud and clear, which is really nice for us. And he made some really good passes. Definitely didn’t see the back-shoulder ball coming by any means. It’s not something we practiced at all. But he gave me a chance at it, which was fun.”
Other team captains weren’t as prominent.
A week after catching four passes for 22 yards in a loss to the Seattle Seahawks, Deebo Samuel Sr. was even less of a factor in Green Bay with one catch for 21 yards and let two throws pass through his hands, one of which was intercepted. He did have an 87-yard kick return in the third quarter wiped away by a dubious holding penalty on tight end Eric Saubert that seemed more like an impressive pancake block.
X gets INT No. 7!#SFvsGB pic.twitter.com/5j2XKwEZ83
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) November 24, 2024
The 49ers also had their worst rushing outing of the season with McCaffrey averaging just 2.8 yards per attempt on 11 carries. When McCaffrey returned at midseason, the 49ers hoped the reigning Offensive Player of the Year would add kick to their offense and jump-start their listless season. Instead, their two worst rushing performances of 2024 have come with McCaffrey in the backfield — 75 yards two weeks ago in a narrow win in Tampa and 44 on Sunday against Green Bay. McCaffrey, who led the NFL with 21 touchdowns in 2023, still hasn’t scored this season.
The best thing the 49ers have going for them right now is their mediocre division. The Seahawks’ win over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday means that, as second-rate as they’ve been the last two weeks, the 49ers are still one game behind the NFC West leaders.
Still, Sunday’s loss certainly had a bad feel to it — as if a team that had been merely treading water for 10 weeks finally slipped beneath the surface.
“I mean, I’m really not concerned right now about how many guys we were missing,” coach Kyle Shanahan said. “We didn’t play good enough, so that’s not a factor. But when you are missing some guys, you do have to be better. When you have those penalties and we didn’t stop the run like we did and we had those three turnovers in the second half, that’s how you get embarrassed.”
(Photo of Brandon Allen fumbling a ball: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
