Nevius: 49ers’ season finale started bad and got way, way worse

Well that wasn’t nearly as much fun as we expected, was it?

In the dreary aftermath of the Eagles’ 31-7 methodical takedown of the 49ers in Sunday’s NFC championship game, you’re going to listen to a lot of recriminations and revisions.

You’ll hear all of it. There were missed calls by the officials. Untimely penalties killed the Niners. The injuries, especially to a whole depth chart of quarterbacks, mounted up until we wondered if a revolving door should be installed on the sideline medical tent.

All of that is true. And we can discuss that.

But first, can we talk? Just us? I’d like to offer up an inconvenient truth.

The 49ers were not going to win this game.

Philadelphia took charge with the first drive of the game, 66 yards in 11 plays, putting them up 7-0, and the direction from there was definitely downhill.

Then Brock Purdy, the rookie media sensation who got Brock-around-the-clock coverage in the lead-up to the game, was hurt and out of the game almost before the TV coverage finished the player introductions.

Four plays into his first offensive series, Purdy was hit by Haason Reddick as he threw. Reddick hit Purdy’s arm as it was going forward and apparently tweaked the elbow on his passing arm.

We will pause for a moment so you can yell, “Why wasn’t anyone blocking Reddick?” but that wasn’t the real point.

Purdy, who was the No. 3 quarterback on the roster and famously was the 262nd player chosen in the draft, was essentially done. He came back on the field late in the game, but as he said afterward, he couldn’t throw, “anything over 10 yards. Maybe 5 yards. Just pain, really. All over.”

That meant the No. 4 quarterback, Josh Johnson, pulled on his helmet. Johnson is, by all accounts, a terrific guy and a very supportive teammate, but he is the living definition of a journeyman quarterback.

In all, he’s played for 13 teams — including the Sacramento Mountain Lions — in 15 years in football and has spent most of the time on the sideline, waiting for an opportunity.

He got one here, but it was never in the cards. He fumbled away a snap and then he was tackled and put in concussion protocol with the Eagles ahead 21-7.

It was about at that point that Hall of Famer Steve Young tweeted: “Warming up in the parking lot. Let me know.”

Nothing seemed to work.

“I feel bad for the guys,’’ Kyle Shanahan said afterward. “They got dealt a tough hand today.”

Actually, it turned out that the No. 5 quarterback was running back Christian McCaffrey, but it hardly mattered. The Eagles mounted one long drive after another and the 49ers were too injured and limited to respond.

“We could only run the ball,” George Kittle said. “It’s frustrating. It’s football. It’s life.”

And yes, the 49ers bailed Philadelphia out far too many times. Penalties reached double digits and came at the worst possible times. A roughing-the-punter call on fourth-and-six kept alive an Eagles drive that resulted in the touchdown that made it 28-7.

And yes, Shanahan should have challenged the call on the first drive of the game, when DeVonta Smith appeared to make a spectacular one-handed catch on fourth-and-three.

Smith leapt to his feet immediately and began insisting another play be run. Subsequent viewings of his “catch” made it clear why. He didn’t want to leave time for a video review. Because as he hit the ground, the ball popped free.

“The replay we saw made it look like a catch,” Shanahan said. “We didn’t have all the angles you guys do. We didn’t want to challenge and lose a time out.”

It should have been an incompletion and the 49ers should have taken over the ball. Which would have meant no touchdown, and no 7-0 Philadelphia lead on the first drive of the game.

And then, the feel-good scenario goes, when McCaffrey broke off a subsequent gem of a high-stepping, hurdling, pinball touchdown run — which he did — it would have been the 49ers with the early 7-0 lead.

Fine. If that makes you feel better. But what about the 14-play, 75-yard scoring drive to make it 14-7 Eagles in the second quarter? Or the 15-play, 72-yard drive in the third?

That looked like a team in control.

There were errors and questionable decisions. Shanahan will be second-guessed for not challenging the Smith catch. Also for not playing it safe with time running out in the first half and only trailing 14-7. Instead, he called for a pass play.

Johnson took his eyes off the long snap, fumbled, the Eagles recovered and three plays later Philadelphia completed a 20-yard drive for a touchdown that made it 21-7.

All of that is true. And it is never fun to see your home team take a shellacking like this. It’s enough for the Faithful to lose faith.

But this would be a great time for true scarlet and gold fans to sit down, take a deep breath and get a little perspective.

This has, by any measure, been quite a year. Calling it a roller-coaster season understates the case.

This is a team ...

... that started the season by losing three of the first five games. And didn’t look very good, frankly, in any of them.

… that had a rip-roaring quarterback controversy that had Jimmy Garoppolo traded about eight times before the season started, only to have Trey Lance suffer a season-ending injury. That set the stage for the miracle of St. Garoppolo, who righted the ship, went 7-3, and put the 49ers back in the playoff picture.

... that saw Garoppolo suffer his own season-ending injury, forcing the team to turn to Purdy, who had never thrown a pass in a regular-season NFL game.

That’s a lot of drama right there. And to have it turn out the way it did — with Purdy unexpectedly turning out to be a terrific sub, going 8-0 and taking the team to the NFC championship game — was pretty remarkable.

Putting aside the sour feelings for a moment, you’ve got a team with a terrific defense, some high-quality offensive stars and the likelihood — unless he suffers a real sophomore slump — that the young quarterback Purdy can take them deep into the playoffs.

Are you sure, if we offered at the start of the season, that you wouldn’t have taken this, the NFL’s final four? There are 28 other teams who wish they’d had the chance to play in that game, win or lose.

So sure, you’re disappointed. But know that at the end of the playoffs, there’s only going to be one team that is happy — the Super Bowl champs.

Everyone else is going to lose their final game.

Just like this.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cw.nevius@pressdemocrat.com. Twitter: @cwnevius