Rams vs 49ers Recap: A Quitter, a Dropped Pass, and the Final Heartbreaking Loss of the 49ers' Season

Every loss is a microcosm. The 49ers’ defeat by the Rams on Thursday was a microcosm of a year of pain.

One player just simply quit. One player literally dropped his chance at redemption. One player came back from a devastating injury and delivered a rampaging performance that was the personification of everything the 49ers always want to be.

There was a lot going on here on the last relevant day of the 2024 season.

It ought to have been impossible for one game to summarize every operatic thing about this miserable 49ers year, but that’s what happened Thursday night at Levi’s Stadium. Oh, also, the 12-6 loss to the Los Angeles Rams was the bitter end of all reasonable postseason hopes for the 6-8 49ers.

The game was a theater of rage, anxiety, frustration, disappointment, and, at last, failure that played out over four damp and drowsy quarters. It was too much. It was explosive. In the end, it felt cathartic — the total torching of all the 2024 talismans. And the beginning of everything that comes next for the 49ers.

This day was about Deebo Samuel, days after expressing personal frustrations about his poor season, botching a pass over the middle that should’ve been a touchdown, and then staring into the air in frozen disbelief. That was every big opportunity the 49ers kicked away this season balled up into one agonized facial expression.

“I would’ve been shocked if he didn’t score on the play,” Kyle Shanahan said of the drop. “Everyone knows the answer to that — Deebo, too, he needs to catch that ball.”

Said Samuel: “Very frustrating. End of the day, you catch that ball, there’s nothing there but the end zone. You’ve got to catch that rock.”

This day was about veteran linebacker De’Vondre Campbell, apparently upset at a demotion, refusing to go into the game in the third quarter when he was needed. It was about the fury of Shanahan and other team leaders in the aftermath of this mind-boggling decision at the tail end of a maddening year.

“Whatever his decision was, it wasn’t for this organization, it wasn’t for this team,” George Kittle said of Campbell. “And that’s on him. Not very happy about it. I wish I would’ve heard it out on the field, but I didn’t. Now, is that the reason we lost? Absolutely not. But it’s hard to win football games when someone doesn’t want to play football. Especially if you’re suited up. Especially when you lose two linebackers.”

And this day was about Dre Greenlaw having a quiet moment with Fred Warner in the tunnel before his first game in more than 300 days rehabbing from a torn Achilles and then firing around the field and through Rams players for a blistering half of football, before he went out of the game after some leg stiffening in the third quarter. Which, full cycle, is when Campbell refused to take his place.

First things first: Campbell will almost certainly be released by Friday morning. As the 49ers stare at their irrelevant final three games and prepare for the off-season, discarding Campbell will be the loudest and most obvious decision they have to make — but assuredly just the start.

“We’re going to find out who wants to be here the next few weeks,” Nick Bosa said pointedly after the game. “We’re going to find out who wants to be a Niner.”

Is this a sign that things are unraveling in the 49ers’ locker room and on their sidelines? Well, it’s sure not evidence that things are in good shape. But more than anything, I think it’s the losing that has taken a toll. It’s the exhaustion of falling short in so many postseasons in a row and then watching so many key teammates get hurt this season. And with Campbell, it was the self-pity of a declining player, not a sign of a coach or front office losing the locker room.

“I haven’t lost anybody,” Shanahan said. “That’s somebody who doesn’t want to play football. That’s pretty simple. I think our team, and myself, we know how we feel about that, so I don’t think we need to talk about him anymore.”

Shanahan, Kittle, and several other 49ers players were so angry about Campbell that you could almost feel the vibration in the air while they spoke. It was absolutely discussed in the locker room immediately after this game and, if you take the 49ers’ words to heart, possibly already taken care of.

The contrast was too obvious: Campbell’s surrender was the opposite of what the 49ers believe in as competitors. And Greenlaw getting the start and barreling his way to 8 tackles in the first half was the essence of the 49ers’ best stuff.

“Everything that he’s gone through, and his journey with rehab, and thinking about that moment in the Super Bowl, and being able to finally go out there and be with him again, it meant everything,” Warner said. “He looked like Dre Greenlaw from the moment we started.”

Could all of this be an igniting moment for the 2025 49ers? They waited for months for something dynamic to happen this season and turn everything around, but it never came. They even had a brief spark last Sunday when they blew out the hapless Bears. But on Thursday, the 49ers’ offense managed only a season-low 191 yards. Every loss is a microcosm of a failed season. This day was a microcosm of a franchise’s year of pain.

And now all they can do is look to 2025 and figure who will be there with them in training camp and who will be sent off. Yes, Deebo, who had only 3 catches for 16 yards to continue one of the worst seasons of his career, could be the next one out. Or he could lead the comeback. He’s such an important personality in that locker room that you know the 49ers want him to be their 2025 revival emblem. Maybe it’s starting now.

“There’s better days ahead for Deebo, there’s plays to be made for Deebo,” said Kittle, who had a talk with Samuel in the locker room after the game. “He has more opportunities to make plays for this team.

“I believe in Deebo. I’ve had games where I’ve had drops. I’ve had games where I did not have my best game. And people picked me up and allowed me to play at a high level again. I love Deebo. While it was not his night tonight, when he did get the ball in his hands, I thought he fought his ass off to try to make plays for us. I know he’ll be eating himself over that one drop. But he has plenty of plays ahead of him.”

Kittle could’ve been talking about himself. He could’ve been talking about every player on the 2024 49ers — and about the head coach and the front office, too. Nobody has had their best season. There have been terrible drops and too many torn ligaments and broken bones. But Thursday seemed like some kind of pivot point for all of this — the last of the worst of it.