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Is Manti Te'o Correct in Calling the 49ers an Emotionally Drained Team?

I'd have to agree with Te'o current assessment of the team. They're experiencing one hell of a Super Bowl hangover and I wouldn't be surprised if they start slowly this season.

Grant Cohn

Oct 21, 2018; Baltimore, MD, USA; New Orleans Saints linebacker Manti Te'o (51) stays on the field before the game against the Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 21, 2018; Baltimore, MD, USA; New Orleans Saints linebacker Manti Te'o (51) stays on the field before the game against the Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports / Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports
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You don't have to be a football expert to feel that something's off with the 49ers.

Trent Williams is holding out. Brandon AIyuk is holding in. Christian McCaffrey is hurt. Their first round pick can't stay healthy. And they just lost the Super Bowl a few months ago. They seem burnt out.

"There's a look that you see when somebody truly believes they're better than you," former NFL linebacker Manti Te'o said recently. "And for the past five years, we've got so accustomed to the San Francisco 49ers walking around not only the NFC West, but the NFL in general, as these big bullies. You watched Trent Williams and Deebo Samuel coming out of the locker room with that boom box. You watched them get into that scuffle in the pregame. You watched their dominant defense and their run game. We got so accustomed to that.

"Well, I flipped on the TV and watched their past two preseason games when their starters played, and I just see an emotionally drained team. They've been to the NFC Championship four [of] the past five years. They've been to the Super Bowl twice, and they lost the Super Bowl to the same team."

I'd have to agree with Te'o current assessment of the team. They're experiencing one hell of a Super Bowl hangover and I wouldn't be surprised if they start slowly this season.

But they started 2-4 in 2021 and went to the NFC Championship. And they started 3-4 in 2022, then won 12 games in a row including the postseason. So they've proven they can flip a switch midseason. I still expect them to win the NFC West, but I'm not so sure they'll win the conference this season.

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Grant Cohn

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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