3 biggest takeaways from SF 49ers Week 14 loss to Washington

The SF 49ers faced some hard realities about themselves in Week 14 against Washington, and the loss revealed these three lessons.

When healthy and at 100 percent, the SF 49ers are a Super Bowl-contending team.

The problem, however, is the Niners haven’t been anywhere close to 100 percent for some time now, and the cold reality is head coach Kyle Shanahan’s squad, as it’s currently constructed, is a sub-.500 team jockeying more for top positioning in the 2021 NFL Draft than any dim hopes for a playoff berth this season.

Shanahan and the rest of San Francisco’s staff won’t blame the slew of injuries, of course. But they are the proverbial “elephant in the room,” revealed all too much by the SF 49ers’ latest on-field debacle: a Week 14 defeat at the hands of the suddenly surging Washington Football Team.

The 23-15 loss makes the game seem closer and more entertaining than it actually was. Washington scored 23 unanswered points after the Niners’ opening touchdown, and 14 of those came off defensive scores. While San Francisco’s own defense did a good enough job to win the game, Shanahan’s offense committed numerous mistakes that ultimately determined the game’s outcome.

And it’s more than fair to draw some simple conclusions from what happened on Sunday.

Now at 5-8 and facing a long and tough offseason ahead of them, the SF 49ers have to look at the reality of their situation, which will start by admitting these three key lessons and takeaways from their most recent defeat at the hands of another sub-.500 team.

Let’s take a look at what Shanahan and the rest of the team can better understand about themselves following the game.