Two weeks ago, the San Francisco 49ers sat at 5-0 after demolishing the Dallas Cowboys. Now, following Monday night's 22-17 loss in Minnesota, Nick Bosa and the suddenly 5-2 Niners are seeking answers.
"The NFL will humble you every step of the way," Bosa said, via NBC Sports Bay Area. "Getting off to a 5-0 start, you kind of get that confidence that you are who we need to be, but the NFL does that. Good players, good schemes, and we're going to face another good team this week, so we gotta be ready."
The Niners D couldn't get off the field Monday night, allowing Kirk Cousins and the Vikings to tally 452 yards and go 8 of 13 on third downs. If not for two red-zone stands, the game would have turned into a blowout.
Enduring their first back-to-back losses in exactly a year (Weeks 6-7, 2022), the Niners lacked complementary play that defined their early string of blowouts. The defense couldn't discombobulate Cousins, generating zero sacks while the secondary got burned by a Justin Jefferson-less Vikings crew. On offense, Brock Purdy tossed two interceptions and Christian McCaffrey fumbled on the first possession of the night.
After four blowout wins in their first five games, the Niners have now lost back-to-back close contests, coming up shy at the end each time.
"I think the thing right now is we've got to find ways to win the grimy games, the ones where it's not looking great and find a way," linebacker Fred Warner said, per ESPN. "Obviously, we can win, 30-10, but who are we and what are we going to do when we're down and we've got to come back and win a game?"
The Niners were missing key pieces Monday night, including star left tackle Trent Williams and wideout Deebo Samuel, but it's not as if their two losses came against healthy opponents. The Browns were missing Nick Chubb, Deshaun Watson, Joel Bitonio and others. The Vikings didn't have Jefferson on Monday but still put up 378 receiving yards.
Kyle Shanahan knows his club has to swiftly move on from the prime-time loss before things snowball further.
"We flat out got beat," the 49ers head coach said, via the official transcript. "I think right now you got to take it like a man. We got a game here, I think tomorrow when we wake up, it will be five days from now. We got a team coming off a bye week who has been waiting for this for a little bit. We can't sit here and worry about what's happened before this. We have to make sure we do everything from now all the way until Sunday when the game is over to beat the Bengals. Then we go into our bye week. I just looked at our guys right now. We have about five and a half days left. Got to focus all on that, make sure we go into the bye week 6-2, not 5-3."
To put it a Belichick way: They're on to Cincinnati.
