49ers Clearly Still Bitter About Eagles Loss
By Liam McKeone
The San Francisco 49ers players have a lot of free time now that their season is over following a loss in the NFC Championship Game to the Philadelphia Eagles. Several players have spent this newfound free time doing media appearances. The common theme in all those appearances is that the Niners still feel like they got robbed and if all were equal they would be the ones preparing to play the Kansas City Chiefs this week.
In other words, they are still quite bitter that they had to watch their third and fourth-string QBs go down with injuries. Brandon Aiyuk appeared on TheSFNiners podcast over the weekend and embodied that attitude, claiming that the Eagles' defense is not all that and would've been exposed by San Francisco were it not for some "unfortunate circumstances". He then said to put the house on Kansas City to win.
"I don't know fully about that defense," Aiyuk said. "They talk about them being a good defense; I'm not sure. I think the pass game, this Kansas City pass game, will expose what we thought we were going to be able to expose before some unfortunate circumstances."
"If I were going to bet on this game, I would take everything that I own, get it in cash, and put my money on the Kansas City Chiefs," the wideout said. "You got to get lucky to win a Super Bowl, and (the Eagles) just got extremely lucky last week, so who's to say they can't do it twice?"
Christian McCaffrey piled on during Super Bowl week, appearing on Up & Adams on Wednesday. He wasn't as open about his complaints as Aiyuk but still told Kay Adams that he feels like something got stolen from his team before clamoring for the NFL to change an obscure rule about carrying a third QB on gamedays.
“It feels like something got stolen from you… Hopefully they change that rule where you can carry a third quarterback.”
— Up & Adams (@UpAndAdamsShow) February 8, 2023
Christian McCaffrey on the hard loss to Eagles in the NFC Championship and being the emergency QB⁰⁰ 📺: @FanDuelTV | @heykayadams | @CMC_22 pic.twitter.com/49RjNye32N
Unbelievable that we need to say it but nothing was stolen. The Niners just got very unlucky again! It's not like things would have changed if they had a third quarterback on the bench that day. They were already down multiple scores when Brock Purdy had to go back in with a bum elbow.
Fact is, the Niners got pretty lucky to go as far as they did. Most teams struggle to win even one playoff game with an average starter, much less make an NFCCG run with the third-stringer. But they apparently cannot appreciate that and instead are still stewing over the loss.