It isn’t always sunny in Philadelphia.
The 49ers were there in 2017, and it was pouring.
Kyle Shanahan, winless seven games into his NFL head-coaching career, was facing the Eagles, and his 49ers didn’t stand a chance against the eventual Super Bowl champions.
The affair was even drearier than its 33-10 final score would indicate. Shanahan’s team was especially short at quarterback and along the offensive line — the 49ers ran out of healthy backup offensive linemen and were seconds away from playing a 250-pound tight end at right tackle. Philadelphia pummeled quarterback C.J. Beathard, hitting him 12 times.
Tackle Joe Staley fractured his orbital bone on a bloody blindside collision during the runback of a pick-six. Safety Jimmie Ward broke his arm.
Only a few reporters were present when Shanahan entered the Lincoln Financial Field press conference room. The 49ers, after all, were 0-8 and generally devoid of compelling talent, so any outside enthusiasm the team generated in the early days of Shanahan’s tenure had fizzled out.
The endless parade of losses was clearly wearing on the coach. He spoke quietly at the lectern, his expression as dreary as the weather outside. In the years since, Shanahan has occasionally reflected on that loss in Philadelphia as the nadir of his 49ers’ team-building process.
“That was a game I’ve tried to forget,” he said years later. “That was a very miserable game. We lost a ton of people in there. I think we were having guards play tackle at the end of that game. I think Pierre Garçon broke his neck that game. It was rough.”
For Sunday’s NFC Championship Game, the 49ers will return to the scene of that low point for one of their highest-stakes games. A win would catapult them back to the Super Bowl, where Shanahan has already guided San Francisco once since that colorless day in Philadelphia.
(Illustration by The Athletic; Photo courtesy of Getty Images)
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