One Bright Side to Take Away From the 49ers' Loss to the Browns

Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for the 49ers in their loss to the Browns. Because of that, there is a bright side to takeaway from it.

Losing to the Cleveland Browns is a bit of a tough pill to swallow for the San Francisco 49ers.

There were so many opportunities in that game for the 49ers to close it out with a win. The Browns also aren't some prominent team in the NFL, which is why the 49ers were so heavily favored in this game. But one thing that is prominent with the Browns is their defense. They completely stonewalled the electric 49ers' offense. And still, despite being stonewalled the 49ers had chances to score more points and win the game. So much went wrong for them in that game. 

Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Brock Purdy had easily the worst game of his career, the running game wasn't effective, the 49ers' run defense wasn't solid, and they were tallying so many penalties. Not to mention that the referees screwed over the 49ers when Nick Bosa had what looked like a strip sack fumble late in the second quarter. Instead, it was ruled a pass attempt that would be penalized for intentional grounding. Because of all that, the 49ers ended up being upset. 

But there is a bright side to takeaway from the 49ers' loss to the Browns. It's the fact that it took a collective abysmal outing from the entire team (and the referees) for the 49ers to lose. They put on an average-to-below-average performance and were still in it until the very end. If rookie kicker Jake Moody makes just ONE field goal from his two misses, the 49ers very well are winning that game. Of course, it's not as simple as the 49ers playing poorly. They did so in part, at least, because of how great the Browns were that day, especially defensively. 

Let's not forget that the 49ers were without Deebo Samuel for the entire game, then eventually Christian McCaffrey for the fourth quarter. With the way that Ray Ray McCloud was being utilized so much in that game, it makes me think that the game plan was to have Samuel be the lead horse that day. The plan clearly was derailed, so that throws a wrench in it all. As unfortunate as that was, it's still on Kyle Shanahan to adjust and figure out what will be effective. But I am not too sure what good that would've done when it was clear Purdy was off that game.

Losing is always a tough pill to swallow, but the 49ers can look back on this game knowing that it took so much to go wrong for them to barely lose. Now they have to use it as fuel to improve upon the faults in that game to prevent something like that from happening down the line.