Winners, losers from 49ers Week 14 overtime win vs. Bengals

49ers Loser: Cornerback Ambry Thomas

It’s tough placing rookie cornerback Ambry Thomas into the losers category after Week 14, as he was faced with an awfully daunting task of trying to regularly cover Ja’Marr Chase, one of the NFL’s top receivers despite being a rookie.

In addition, Thomas was making his first-ever start because of fellow corners Emmanuel Moseley (ankle) and Dontae Johnson (bereavement) being out of the lineup, so the ask for San Francisco’s third-round NFL Draft pick was tall from the very beginning.

Despite all that, Thomas looked very rookie-ish from the beginning. And despite coordinator DeMeco Ryans doing everything in his power to scheme the defense in the cornerback’s favor, Thomas still was pegged for four notable mistakes.

Two of those were penalties against him for illegal hands to the face, one wiping out what could have been Nick Bosa’s third sack of the game and another erasing a would-be interception by safety Jimmie Ward.

Chase also beat Thomas multiple times, too, one of them going for a touchdown and the other nearly so.

Ward defended Thomas after the game, though, saying it was a notable learning experience for the first-year pro.

Let’s leave it at that.