The San Francisco 49ers are no strangers to adversity. They have been down this road before.
In 2021, a four-game losing streak dropped the 49ers to 2-4 on the season, and they stood at 3-5 after eight games. That resilient squad went on to reach the NFC Championship Game. Last season, San Francisco started 3-4. That team went on to win 12 consecutive games, returning to the conference title game.
After an impressive 5-0 start, the one-time Super Bowl favorites have now lost three consecutive games, culminating in a 31-17 defeat to the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday. However, there's nothing about their current 5-3 record that has the 49ers doubting their ability to rebound.
"I've been in the NFL way too long, been 5-0 and haven't made the playoffs before," head coach Kyle Shanahan said after the 49ers' last victory, a Week 5 rout of the Dallas Cowboys. "All that stuff really doesn't matter."
Much like Shanahan's caution against overreactions to the 49ers' 5-0 start, the team now urges against hastily writing them off after their recent rough patch.
When asked about the locker room attitude following Sunday's defeat, defensive tackle Arik Armstead responded, "I think it is a mixed mood. My mood is that we have been through worse in this league, 3-4 last year and 3-5 the year before, and we know where we got towards the end of the year in both of those years."
Armstead added, "Putting those things into perspective, we have everything we need to be successful, team-wise, and we have all the players. Going into the bye week, I feel like it would be good for us to get some rest and back on track and get back to dominating."
Shanahan is optimistic that the 49ers have the personnel inside the building to reverse their fortunes. What's needed is a return to more fundamentally sound football.
"I believe we have good players," Shanahan said after the Week 8 loss. "I believe we have good coaches. It's up to me to get them to do better. I thought we started out pretty good, but there's some things that we haven't been able to hide here in these last few weeks. And that's why we've got to continue to push them in every aspect because some people do go on these losing streaks, and they don't have those answers, and you're just living in hope."
The bye week offers time for the 49ers to scrutinize their weaknesses, make necessary corrections, and return to their winning ways. The team firmly believes they possess a Super Bowl-caliber roster, and any existing cracks aren't beyond repair.
"I truly believe we do have the answers," Shanahan said. "I believe we've got them on our team. I believe we've got them with our staff, and we got to sit here and wait about 14 days to deal with this feeling that we have, which nobody wants, but I think we need to.
"I think our guys need to be pissed off a little bit. I think we need to come back with a little better focus because it hasn't been enough, and we haven't been getting it done."
The players do not doubt that the 49ers coaching staff can navigate them out of this slump.
"The good news is we've been here before, and we've had pretty good results," defensive end Nick Bosa said. "There's a lot of silver linings with who we have in this locker room. We just have to play better. ... We've been in worse positions at this point of the year, and we just have to maintain our confidence in each other. We've done it, and we can do it again."
