It never was going to be easy, but the 49ers made the road a lot more difficult on themselves.

“This team’s been through a lot this year,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said after his team failed Saturday night in their bid to earn the NFC’s No. 1 playoff seed.

“Now we’ve got to do it the hard way, and we’ll embrace the s–t out of doing it the hard way, and look forward to it.”

The 49ers open the playoffs on Sunday in Philadelphia against last season’s Super Bowl champs. More than likely, it will require the 49ers to win three consecutive games on the road to make it back to Levi’s Stadium on Feb. 8 for Super Bowl LX.

There was plenty of emotion coming out of the 49ers’ lackluster 13-3 loss to the Seahawks, which earned Seattle the top seed in the NFC.

With the regular season a thing of the past, the fans came through to supply the content for our first postseason installment of 49ers Overreactions.

This team is only as good as Pearsall and Trent being healthy.  Not an overreaction. Just the truth. (@sone22)

Overreaction? No.

The 49ers have a good offensive line, but that unit is a heck of a lot better when Trent Williams is on the field. Of course.

And the 49ers’ wide receivers are a collection of players that, as a whole, are significantly below average in comparison to some other teams around the NFL. Ricky Pearsall brings an element to the offense that is severely lacking when he is not on the field.

Austen Pleasants struggled at left tackle in place of Williams, as you would expect for a player making his first pro start and going up against one of the top defensive lines in the NFL.

The 49ers had no downfield presence at wide receiver, and no real ability to separate against tight man coverage. Pearsall averaged a team-leading 58.7 yards receiving in the nine games he suited up.

Because of how important Williams and Pearsall are to the team, the 49ers’ biggest hope is that their time off Saturday night was beneficial in getting them back on the field for the first-round playoff game at Philadelphia.

Worst game Kyle has ever called as the 49er HC. (@lordremix876)

Overreaction? No.

It’s a results business, and the results show that this was the 49ers’ worst offensive performance in Shanahan’s nine seasons as head coach.

The 49ers were held to three points, nine first downs and 173 total yards.

For futility, it matches their scoring output in Week 1 of the 2017 season. That was Shanahan’s first game with the 49ers. That team had Brian Hoyer at quarterback.

This team is capable of so much more, even against a strong Seattle defense. They did not get the job done in a game with the highest-possible regular-season stakes. The team had no answers. The offense will have to get hot again in order to extend the season past Sunday.

Never dawn the black jersey again. (@Jeremy_Profitt)

Overreaction? No.

It’s never a good thing when a team with the history and tradition of the 49ers take the field looking like the Arizona Cardinals.

C’mon, man. What are we doing here?

The 49ers looked like the Cardinals on Saturday night, and they played like the Cardinals.

The 49ers should model how the Seahawks front office rebuilt their roster. (@dwc1David)

Overreaction? No, but they already have started.

The 49ers focused entirely on the defensive side of the ball with their first five picks in the 2025 NFL Draft, as they looked to get more stout on the defensive line and increase their team speed.

One key loss that rarely gets mentioned in the same breath as Nick Bosa and Fred Warner is defensive lineman Mykel Williams, the No. 11 overall pick who sustained a season-ending torn ACL on Nov. 2.

The selections of Williams, Alfred Collins, Nick Martin, Upton Stout and CJ West was, in essence, making up for lost time.

San Francisco’s building efforts were set back with the trades to acquire Trey Lance and Christian McCaffrey, as the 49ers dealt away some premium high-round draft picks that could have been used to bolster the defense.

Their best chance at a SB was 2 years ago. That window is shut. (@MG0879)

Overreaction? Yes.

While the 49ers’ best chance at a Super Bowl was two years ago — because they actually made it to the Super Bowl and were just one fourth-down stop in overtime from the victory — the window is not shut. They proved the window is open with the fact that they took the field in Week 18 with a chance to earn the No. 1 seed.

The window is a year-to-year thing. The window still is open as long as they remain alive in the postseason. And if they lose, the window closes for the season.

But guess what? It re-opens next season.

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