HOUSTON — The easy way out would be to say that all the injuries finally caught up to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
They lost three more defensive starters during the game and couldn’t stop the Houston Texans from gaining 475 yards and controlling the ball for 41:22 of 60 minutes.
But the bottom line was that they didn’t play well in the 26-15 loss.
“They kicked our ass,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said. “And we’ve got to take it like men and come back, hopefully a little pissed off, and play better next week than we did this week. … There’s not much to sugarcoat. I was real disappointed in how we looked for all four quarters.”
The offense didn’t have a first down on six of its nine possessions, including each of its first three, while the defense blew coverages and missed tackles on third downs all day. And yeah, not having Nick Bosa, Fred Warner and Bryce Huff didn’t help. The Niners never sacked Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud and touched only him twice.
“Yeah, it makes it harder,” Shanahan said, “but, I mean, we played a lot better last week, so we can do a lot better than we did today.”
The 49ers have had players miss a league-high 2,036 games due to injury in the nine-year Shanahan era, and it seems like half of those have come in the last 14 months.
“It’s unbelievable, right?” safety Ji’Ayir Brown said. “I believe in the guys that we’ve got, and this game, man, it never stops teaching. Houston made the least amount of mistakes. Kudos to them.”
The good news is that Sunday’s injuries — linebacker Dee Winters (knee), defensive tackle Jordan Elliott (ankle) and defensive end Sam Okuayinonu (ankle) — don’t seem like serious, long-term issues, Shanahan said. And that “easy” schedule everyone talked about all spring and summer finally kicks in. Only one of the 49ers’ next six opponents has a winning record, and four have two wins or fewer.
And, stop us if you’re tired of hearing this, but the Niners might get quarterback Brock Purdy and receiver Ricky Pearsall back from the trainer’s room next week.
So, morale was fine in the 49ers’ locker room Sunday afternoon.
“We’ve still got our heads on straight, still trying to get to where we want to go, the Super Bowl,” said cornerback Deommodore Lenoir, who did latch on to the team’s first interception of the season, snapping a record 14-game drought without a pick. “We’ll go home from this business trip, make our corrections and then go on our next one to New York. We don’t get frustrated about the injuries …
“I’ve never questioned God, and everything happens for a reason. The leaders on this team have to keep preaching: Whoever gets the opportunity, just be ready, because they’ve been coming fast.”
Fullback Kyle Juszyzck called Sunday’s loss “the perfect storm,” and said it’s behind them.
“Not a lot of opportunities,” he said. “And when we did have opportunities, we didn’t take advantage of them. … We’re not going to give up. At the end of the day, that’s your only choice. When people go down, it’s the next men up. You’ve just got to continue to keep that standard. Eventually, yeah, there are talent differences, but you can’t let that creep in your head.”
The Texans played without their two top receivers and decided to establish the run game. Running backs Woody Marks and Nick Chubb combined for 118 yards rushing and 62 receiving, while Stroud ran for 30 in addition to throwing for 318 and two touchdowns.
The early kickoff time didn’t help with the sluggish start, and falling behind against a violent Texans defense led by Will Anderson is a bad idea. Anderson had a sack and three quarterback hits, and the 49ers held Christian McCaffrey to 25 yards rushing and 43 receiving.
“(Anderson) was strong, and he got the better of me today,” right tackle Colton McKivitz said. “We ended up being on the sideline for two-thirds of the game. It’s frustrating when it’s three-and-out after three-and-out, you don’t get any rhythm.”
As a member of the Jacksonville Jaguars last year, 49ers quarterback Mac Jones has now played the Texans three times in the past 13 months. He walked away 0-3 and with the same feeling.
“I thought they were the best defense in the NFL,” Jones said. “They’ve played together for a long time, they’ve got two great defensive ends and really good inside guys, too.
The 49ers teased getting back in the game, with Jones’ touchdown pass to George Kittle in the closing seconds of the second quarter, and then with a scoring strike to Jake Tonges (which was actually intended for Kittle behind him) late in the third. But they could never get the timely stop they needed.
Jones felt bad that the offense put the 49ers’ defense behind the eight ball early and often.
“When they’re out there for that many plays, they get tired, and it’s harder to just play,” he said.”Even if we just get a couple first downs, it takes some pressure off them.”
Kittle went as far as to say he thought the 49ers defense played “really well.”
“They were flying around hitting people,” Kittle said. “If you’re holding the team to four field goals and just two touchdowns, our offense has to score points. … We’re not really doing to help our young defense, who’s adjusting and trying. … I think this (loss) is really on the offense.”
Shanahan was asked whether the loss to the Texans was a reality check after the Niners had been able to overcome the injuries in two of the past three weeks.
“Our reality is pretty realistic on what we deal with every week,” he said. “I mean, you guys can write about that stuff. But yeah, it’s definitely harder when you lose really good players.
“But we’ve had that situation throughout this year. And all I want us to do is play as good as we can play. And then you can deal with whatever. And today, we didn’t play as well as we could play.”