The 49ers are going to miss the playoffs for the first time since 2020 and that’s a disappointing outcome given what their expectations were heading into the year, but some with the team are trying to find a positive spin to put on it.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan admitted he’d be more excited about playing into February, but said that finishing up in Week 18 “gives you more time to figure things out” and he called it “real exciting” to have the ability to start that work. Defensive end Nick Bosa shared a similar view.
Bosa noted that the only year the 49ers didn’t make a deep playoff run in his career was when he was rehabbing a torn ACL and said he thinks the entire squad will benefit from having a bit more time off heading into the 2025 season.
“It’s going to be huge,” Bosa said, via 49ersWebzone.com. “I think we kind of needed it as a team. It’s definitely a grind. It’s only one more month, but adding another month on top of what you’ve already done feels like three months, so it’s a huge, huge thing.”
Bosa declined to say that the extended runs of the last three years were part of what caused them problems this season and it certainly didn’t hurt perennial playoff clubs like the Chiefs and Bills, so we’ll have to wait to see just how different things wind up looking for the 49ers off of this season.
