SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Remember these guys? It hasn’t actually been long since the San Francisco 49ers looked like this, played like this, stomped around on national television like this and seemed so very suited for another Super Bowl run like this.
But yes, everybody needed some reminding. After this long, anxious summer of contract wrangling, near-trades, near-tragedies and missing stars, the 49ers needed to get back on the field and get to banging around the New York Jets to open the regular season.
The result: Even after Christian McCaffrey was a surprise late scratch due to a calf injury, the 49ers delivered a crunching, efficient 32-19 victory at Levi’s Stadium on Monday night that was a signal to the rest of the league and outside critics and a clarion call to themselves. The 49ers went through a weird summer. Losing McCaffrey temporarily was a jolt. But they’re still quite good. They took the Kansas City Chiefs to overtime in the Super Bowl in February and led until the Chiefs’ winning touchdown.
The 49ers have tons of stars. They’re tough and explosive. They are elite. They can do things like, say, blast out 180 rushing yards on a very good Jets defense, just like they did Monday. The 49ers can do a lot of things that almost nobody else can. Remember?
“It just means a lot to have the boys back together, have the band back together,” Jauan Jennings said. “And we had a helluva concert tonight.”
Trent Williams is introduced to the crowd before the game against the New York Jets at Levi’s Stadium. (Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)
Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams were back in action after settling their contract disputes in the last week or so. Ricky Pearsall was smiling in sweats on the sidelines, not much more than a week after suffering a gunshot wound during a robbery attempt. And if there were any doubts about the focus of this team after all this, they were gone once the 49ers gathered for practice early last week.
What could’ve torn the 49ers apart only made them happier to be back together.
“I walked in, I’m like, man, everybody is, like, laser-focused, everybody’s flying around,” Williams said Monday night, describing the mood of the team when he returned early last week. “Not a lot of joking going on. We’ve got a lot of new players in the locker room that’s already playing at (the level) we expect around here. Looked at all the young guys in the draft. I know obviously we had a good roster last year. I didn’t know that they could improve it. But in my opinion, we’ve improved.”
Time will tell on that one, but I don’t think the 49ers are feeling some false euphoria here. They’re feeling a bit of real euphoria after so much could’ve been lost this summer. While Kyle Shanahan isn’t a touchy-feely kind of coach, he had to be carefully monitoring the team’s mood, especially in the last few weeks. And Shanahan told an offensive group meeting over the weekend that he knew the team was ready for this by feeling the energy and attitude during practice last week.
“When Kyle said that, it just reaffirmed everything I was feeling,” Kyle Juszczyk said.
The most impressive part was, of course, doing it without McCaffrey, last year’s NFL Offensive Player of the Year. But Shanahan adapted by playing to backup Jordan Mason’s strengths. The passes to McCaffrey were out. The downhill runs by Mason were in. And repeated on Mason’s way to 28 carries for 147 yards and a TD.
“I told Christian that literally the only good thing that came out of him not playing is that our playbook shrinks just a little bit,” George Kittle said. “I’m always a fan of the shrinking playbook. Kyle can make all these awesome plays; the cool thing about Christian is he can do all these things that no one else in the world can do. But we really just ran the most simple outside zone all day. Whether it was a weakside run at Trent or Colton (McKivitz), or we had two tight ends in there and just running outside zone. It worked really, really well.”
It did not all go perfectly Monday, as Shanahan was quick to point out. Without McCaffrey, the 49ers offense had to work its way into a groove with Mason getting his first start at running back. But once they got going, after Fred Warner’s forced fumble set up the first of six Jake Moody field goals, the 49ers just kept going and going.
All work, no luck. pic.twitter.com/zGORAUg0Np
— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) September 10, 2024
They did it the pure Shanahan Way, pounding out their first long touchdown drive by running 10 times in a 12-play drive to take their first lead, 13-7. They did it on defense by stuffing the Jets’ running game and completely limiting Aaron Rodgers. They did it by avoiding turnovers. They did it with Brock Purdy making all the necessary throws and none of the dumb ones.
And they did it in a way they know they can repeat. Because this was a repeat of about 20 or 30 other times they’ve won games this way over the last five years. There is no guarantee the 49ers can keep doing this, or whether they will finally end up with a Super Bowl title. They might suffer more injuries. They might falter in the middle or, again, at the end.
But for now, they’re still tough. They’re still physical. They still have a quarterback who does the right things. They still have stars everywhere on the roster. They still listen to each other. They’re still tied together. And in a week or two, they’ll have McCaffrey back, too.
“We’ve got great leaders in this locker room,” Williams said. “And we’ve got people who follow the leadership. We’ve got leaders that echo what the coaches are preaching. That’s the reason our locker room was able to stay focused.”
But wait: Did the 49ers almost trade Aiyuk mere moments before he finally agreed to the four-year, $120 million deal that brought him back into the fold late last month? Fox Sports’ Jay Glazer reported on Sunday that the 49ers had decided to trade Aiyuk to Pittsburgh before he went into Shanahan’s office and said he would agree with the 49ers’ last offer. And that it took Shanahan interrupting the 49ers’ trade preparations to stop the process and get Aiyuk’s contract wrapped up.
Is this true, Kyle?
“I mean, most of it, yeah,” Shanahan said Monday.
Whew. Trading Aiyuk after those weird negotiations would not have been a great way to go into the regular season. I don’t think even the 49ers’ tight locker room could’ve brushed that one off. But then things were settled. The 49ers, somehow, put the pieces back together. And they turned Week 1 into a celebration and, they sure believe, the sign of things to come.
(Top photo of Brandon Aiyuk: Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)