49ers Notebook: No panic in the locker room; Players support Steve Wilks; Purdy not blaming concussions or absences; Bengals get confidence boost

The bad news -- the San Francisco 49ers have now lost three games in a row and in doing so have looked nothing like the Super Bowl favorite they appeared to be after winning five consecutive games to start the season.

The good news -- the 49ers have been in worse situations than this and have come out just fine.

Take 2022 for example. The 49ers started off 3-4 that season, and after taking a 44-23 drubbing from the Kansas City Chiefs to get that fourth loss, no one would have predicted the 49ers would make a run to the NFC Championship game. But that's exactly what happened, as the 49ers didn't lose a game between the Chiefs loss and their loss to the Eagles in the NFC Championship.

This year's team heads into their bye week in a much better spot. And not surprisingly, they're confident in their ability to get back on the winning side of things over the second half of the season.

"When I got traded here last year, we were 3-4 and I didn't sense an inch of panic," running back Christian McCaffrey said after the 49ers' 31-17 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday. "It was a team who was hungry to win, who knew they could win, and who did just that and kept chopping wood. And that's really what it comes down to. Now we're 5-3, coming into a bye with the right guys. This is a tough league, and we've got the right guys to get everything fixed."

McCaffrey only has his experience with the 49ers in 2022 to dwell upon. The 49ers did it in 2021 as well, rebounding from a 2-4 and 3-5 start to wind up in the NFC Championship game against the Los Angeles Rams.

"It obviously sucks losing three games in a row, but we've been through worse," defensive lineman Arik Armstead said. "This bye week I think will be good for us -- get some rest, regroup, refocus and turn the page. But obviously frustrating -- not the performances we wanted to have these past couple of weeks, but we still have an amazing team. We'll find a way."

The 49ers will be back in action on November 12 against a 6-2 Jacksonville Jaguars team on the road. From there, the second half of the schedule will be a mix of potential landmines and games the 49ers will be expected to win (home against Tampa Bay, Seattle, Baltimore, and the Rams; road games against Seattle, Philadelphia, Arizona, and Washington). The past three games have shown there's plenty the 49ers need to clean up over the next two weeks, but one thing they won't have to fix is their belief in their ability to get where they want to go in the end.

"We've been here before," defensive end Nick Bosa said. "We've been in worse positions at this point of the year. We just have to maintain the confidence in the people in this room because we've done it, and we can do it again."

In addition to that dose of confidence during adversity, we have a lot more to cover in this version of 49ers Notebook, including some support for beleaguered defensive coordinator Steve Wilks, Brock Purdy's comments on his concussion symptoms and injured offensive players, and much more. Let's get into it...

In support of Steve Wilks

The 49ers have spent a significant amount of money and resources on their defense but have looked a long way from the elite unit they're expected to be over the past couple of games. Taking the brunt of the criticism over that performance has been defensive coordinator Steve Wilks. But while fans and some media have started to pile on Wilks, 49ers players still have his back.

"Nothing's on Coach, honestly," safety Talanoa Hufanga said Sunday. "He says a call, we've got to play it. We've got to bring the call to life. For us, we've just got to go out there and execute."

Wilks, a longtime veteran of the NFL with experience as a head coach, a coordinator and a position coach, was hired in the offseason after former coordinator DeMeco Ryans left to become the head coach of the Houston Texans. Wilks suggested in recent days there's still an adjustment period going on, which linebacker Fred Warner agreed with during his postgame comments.

"Yeah, (Wilks is) the least my worries, honestly," Warner said. "I think players win games, not coaches. I think he's done a great job. There's going to be ebbs and flows in a season, especially with a new defense coordinator. I think the offensive side has gone through that as well when we lost (Mike) McDaniel (to the Miami Dolphins). Even though Kyle (Shanahan) is the play caller, when you lose a coach, there's going to be adjustments being made throughout the season.

"So we got to continue to work on that. But at the end of the day, players are going to be the reason that we win games. We got to execute at a higher level player wise."

Wilks got a vote of confidence last week from general manager John Lynch, who said the 49ers still believe he was a "great hire." 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan, who was upset last week over a decision to call a zero blitz on a play that resulted in a second quarter touchdown in a loss to the Minnesota Vikings, deflected blame from Wilks when the subject came up after the loss to the Bengals.

"This isn't on any one coach or any one side of the ball," Shanahan said. "We haven't scored over 20 points here in three weeks too. So, I think our defense needs to do better. I think our offense needs to do better. I think our team needs to do better. And when I say our team, I mean every single player in there and I mean every single coach."

So what has been the problem on defense over the past three games? Warner summed it up as being "inconsistency across the board."

"I think tackling has been an issue when it hasn't been in the past," Warner said. "Players got to execute at a higher level, including myself. We got to play more as a unit. There's got to be more hunt to the football at all three levels. There's got to be more penalty free football. Like I said, execution's got to be higher. We think that we're preparing hard. We think that we're putting a lot of work in. Obviously we're not doing enough. There's got to be more there. That's just what it is."

Early turning point

If there was one play on Sunday that signaled what kind of game it was going to be for the 49ers defense, it was during a 3rd-and-10 on the Bengals' first offensive possession when the 49ers seemed to have quarterback Joe Burrow stopped in his tracks for a sack. But Burrow made a miraculous escape on the play, which kept the possession alive.

49ers defensive lineman Arik Armstead had two sacks against the Bengals, but he admitted that the play that should have given him a third turned out to be a crucial early moment in the game.

"It was a huge play," Armstead said. "I missed a sack on that play. That was my fault. I've got to do a better job of being a little lower and get him down to the ground. And definitely I felt that was a huge play -- a momentum shift. To get them off the field on their first possession, it's a different game. They go all the way down and score. It was a play that I didn't make and all I could do was try to respond in that situation, try to flush it. But it was definitely an important play I think that affected the course of the game. If we get off the field right there, they don't have momentum and they don't have confidence to get anything going thus far."

The Bengals scored a touchdown on that drive and went on to score another on their second drive. Burrow had a nearly flawless day, completing 28-of-32 passes for
283 yards, three touchdowns, and zero interceptions.

Purdy not blaming concussion symptoms or injured All-Pros for issues

While the defense has been uncharacteristically porous as of late, the 49ers offense has dropped off dramatically from their first five games of the season, during which the team scored 30 or more points in every game. They haven't gotten past 17 points in each of their past three losses, and there's been various reasons for that, including not being completely healthy.

The 49ers have been without left tackle Trent Williams (ankle) and wide receiver Deebo Samuel (shoulder) over the past two weeks. It's clear the 49ers are a better offense with Williams and Samuel on the field, but quarterback Brock Purdy said the players who have been out there have been getting the job done.

"Honestly, I think the O-Line has done a great job," Purdy said. "Obviously Trent is the best in the league at his position. So, yeah, of course we want Trent out there. Deebo as well for how explosive he is. But there's still plays out there we made and we're still moving the ball.

"This offense is good. The players that we have in it is good. To have those guys back would be great, obviously. They're really good and we love playing with them, and they bring just a juice and energy to the offense that we need, for sure."

Shanahan told reporters Sunday that Williams and Samuel were missed but that their absences weren't to blame for what has gone wrong offensively.

"I think we've hurt ourselves a lot in these last few weeks too," Shanahan said. "Then when you get in those situations and you are a little bit more one dimensional at the end and you're passing every time, yeah, you're going to notice not having Trent out there and stuff like that. But that's when we're already in that situation. I mean, we shouldn't have been there. And when that's the case, yeah you can have some great guys bail you out of some stuff, whether it's Deebo taking a screen to the house or Trent being able to hold up in protection longer, but by no means are those reasons why we lost these games. It's just harder to overcome."

Williams and Samuel haven't been the only key player on offense fighting injury. Purdy was dealing with concussion symptoms last week and was placed in the concussion protocol before being cleared to play. But he told reporters Sunday his symptoms weren't a problem against the Bengals and weren't too much of an issue in the days leading up to the game either.

"I felt 100 percent all week," Purdy said. "My symptoms and stuff weren't as bad compared to many other concussions that the team has had. And I was doing fine and was doing great for each phase of the protocol. When I got cleared, we all thought I was going to get cleared, and sure enough, I did. So I felt 100 percent going into this game."

Riding high out of the Bay Area

While the 49ers are heading out of Sunday's game on a low note, the same cannot be said for the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals got off to a disappointing 1-3 start to the 2023 season, but on Sunday they delivered their best performance of the season to move to 4-3 and are now feeling like the Super Bowl contender they were expected to be heading into the year.

As a matter of fact, their confidence shot so high after the win in Levi's Stadium that wide receiver Tyler Boyd seemingly declared the Bengals to be the overall favorite.

"We're the team to beat, and we're gonna continue to be that team," Boyd said, via Pro Football Network. "It just let everybody know that we're back. They were one of the top teams, if not the top team in the NFC. It's high alert now."

Left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. also declared Sunday's win to be a statement that the Bengals had arrived.

"To come out here and against this team, the San Francisco 49ers are not a joke," Brown Jr. said, via PFN. "They will be in the playoffs. They will probably be in the NFC Championship and possibly in the Super Bowl. But that's who we are. We've got that mindset that they've got to play us. You saw today what we able to do."

The Bengals will have the opportunity to show a national audience next week they are indeed for real when they host the Buffalo Bills on Sunday Night Football.