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Why the 49ers are Struggling to Win Close Games

When the 49ers lose, they generally lose close games that they probably should have won.

Grant Cohn

Nov 10, 2024; Tampa, Florida, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the second half at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images
Nov 10, 2024; Tampa, Florida, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the second half at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images / Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images
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When the 49ers lose, they generally lose close games that they probably should have won.

So far this season, they've blown fourth-quarter leads to the Rams, the Cardinals and the Seahawks and lost to all three teams. In each game, the 49ers defense had a chance to close out the victory at the end and failed.

Same thing happened in the Super Bowl. The 49ers defense had opportunities to end the game in regulation and overtime and couldn't get the job done. Of course, I'm not blaming the defense solely for these losses -- the offense struggled in these games, too.

But the 49ers used to have an identity, a particular way they closed out games. From 2019 to 2023, no matter how good their offense was, their defense was the closer. The offense played complementary football, which means it ran the football and won the time of possession battle so that the defense was fresh enough to put away the game in the fourth quarter.

Which means the 49ers offense never had the pressure of winning games. That's why they kicked field goals at the end of regulation and in overtime of the Super Bowl. They're accustomed to their defense being even better than their offense.

Those days are over.

The 49ers defense isn't great anymore. It's Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, Deommodore Lenoir and a bunch of guys plus a rookie defensive coordinator. Nobody is scared of them. And when Nick Bosa isn't on the field, they're extremely vulnerable. Which is why he's playing more snaps than ever this season. And as a result, he has two soft-tissue injuries right now.

The 49ers have to understand that their offense is the best unit on the team and needs to step up in crunch time. The defense can't do the heavy lifting anymore.

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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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