You don’t raise a banner for winning a Week 7 game in the NFL. You don’t drop confetti or pop champagne for football games in October, either. But if the 49ers can win Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs, the emotional response from the players, coaches, and fans, will surely be so celebratory, you’d think there will be a parade down Market Street to commemorate the occasion.
You see, these 49ers have won everything there is to win in the NFL, save for , a title. Twice, they’ve played for the ultimate prize. Twice, they’ve lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl, with both games ending in excruciating fashion.
“That can give a little post-traumatic stress,” 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan said this week. “I think that’s human nature. But you’ve got to make sure you don’t get caught up in that.
This game has nothing to do with past games, that was last year.” But that’s all easy to say. It’s not so easy to do.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes are the Niners’ boogeymen. Together, they’re an all-time force standing in the way of history, perhaps even destiny, for the Niners. It’s “human nature” for the Niners to build this game into something more.
Yes, one October game in the 17-game NFL can only mean so much. But no matter what they might say today, for the 49ers, this game against the Chiefs on Sunday means everything. Last week, the Niners’ season was on the brink.
This campaign was supposed to be anothe.