Kurtenbach: The 49ers’ dud performance means they have to go ‘the hard way.’ Success is a hard sell

SANTA CLARA — Black is slimming.

So are the 49ers’ chances of winning the Super Bowl this season after a 13-3 beat-down loss to the Seattle Seahawks Saturday, with San Francisco wearing a one-off, all-black uniform.

Only a few days ago, this 49ers season looked inexplicably charmed. The Niners were surging, and the No. 1 seed was sitting right there on the table like a holiday roast — the path to a Lombardi Trophy looked like a short road that seemed smoothly paved in gold.

Now? It’s more than a bit rocky.

Reality crashed upon Levi’s Stadium on Saturday evening in the form of the Seahawks’ defense — relentless, violent, and undeniable.

With the NFC West title and the conference’s top seed on the line, the 49ers didn’t just lose; they were exposed.

All those 40-point games for Purdy and the Niners’ offense? They didn’t do it against the best. (Even if the Browns’ defense is quite good.)

Yes, there are levels to this game, folks. And right now, the Seahawks — wonky offense and all — are operating on a floor the 49ers can’t quite reach.

The good news: San Francisco will play a playoff game next weekend, likely against the Eagles in Philadelphia, though a trip to the wind-whipped shores of Lake Michigan to face the Bears remains a possibility.

And while those teams are in the tournament, let’s be real: They don’t have anything close to the defense Seattle deployed on Saturday.

But that’s the problem. To get back home for the Super Bowl, the 49ers, in all likelihood, won’t play another home game. They’ll have to win three straight on the road.

And they’ll probably have to face the Seahawks again.

Did you see a path to victory for the Niners on Saturday?

I sure didn’t.

While forecast rain in the Bay Area might not have arrived for the game, neither did the Niners’ offense. And without that, these Niners are something far less than dangerous.

Yes, there were moments where the game script could have flipped — the failure to pick up Sam Darnold’s woeful fumble, Christian McCaffrey’s tipped-pass, bobbled-catch interception at the Seattle 3-yard line, a couple of unacceptable third-down conversions for the Seattle offense, and a handful of offensive plays the Niners wish they had back.

But amid all that, Seattle controlled every aspect of Saturday’s game. They had double the yards and nearly double the time of possession of the 49ers in the contest.

Even if those plays had gone a different way, what’s to say it would have changed the outcome on Saturday?

In a battle between a supposedly elite 49ers offense vs. an unquestionably elite Seahawks defense, there was no question which was the better operation.

“Disappointed. NFL, you can have a bad game [in] any game. Unfortunately, we decided to have a bad game today,” George Kittle said.

But Seattle’s dominance wasn’t just a bad day in the office for the Niners — it was a culmination of two years of work for Seahawks’ head coach and defensive mastermind Mike Macdaniel, who was hired expressly because the Baltimore Ravens defense he coordinated obliterated Kyle Shanahan and Brock Purdy and the Niners’ offense on Christmas 2023.

Saturday was the Christmas Day massacre all over again.

The Niners, to a man, called their new playoff path “the hard way.” And in noting that this team has overcome injuries, drama, and adversity all season, the company line was clear: What’s another ridiculous challenge to toss on the pile?

“It is what it is. This team has been through a lot this year. Now we have to do it the hard way, and we’ll embrace the s— out of doing it the hard way,” Shanahan said. “Look forward to it.”

“It’s time to get our bodies back, our minds right for a hell of a journey ahead,” McCaffrey said.

It’s a nice sentiment. It’s the right thing to say.

But these 49ers are already road-weary travelers, and their route just got a lot longer.

“We lost at home to a division rival for the division and the [No.] 1 seed. That sucks. It is what it is… The good news is I get to play football again next week,” Kittle said before adding in the more important truth:

“Would I much rather be on a bye and get to play at Levi’s Stadium? Yeah. But that’s not our reality.”

Sure, these Niners can go into Philly or Chicago or play Green Bay and win. They can surely beat whoever crawls out of the NFC South sewage.

But these Seahawks? That’s a better football team on Saturday, and probably on Sundays, too.

Seattle’s defense was near-impeccable in what was the biggest regular-season game in Levi’s Stadium history. It took an offense that was clicking at a historic level — more than three points per drive since Week 10 — and held them to three points.

Yes, the absences of Trent Williams at left tackle and Ricky Pearsall at wide receiver loomed larger than the Levi’s video screen. Without Pearsall, the Niners lacked a true man-to-man beater, and Seattle was able to exploit that on every snap, selling out to stop Kittle and McCaffrey in the middle of the field, daring anyone else to beat them.

No one could.

But Seattle also never seemed to miss a tackle. Its interior pass rush collapsed the pocket before Purdy could blink. Their run defense was gap-sound and disciplined. Their secondary was outstanding.

It all meant Saturday’s game was a 10-point win that felt like a blowout.

The Niners’ offense was suffocated Saturday. It was a harrowing performance for a team that needs its offense to be the engine driving it this December and January.

And now San Francisco is likely down their two starting linebackers (one of which is already their second-stringer), on top of all the team’s other season-defining injuries.

Don’t forget: this isn’t the first time the mask has slipped against a top-tier opponent. The Rams came into Levi’s Stadium back in November and smoked the Niners 42-26.

When the class of the NFC West shows up in the post-Fred Warner, post-Mykel Williams (he was a one-man run stopper) era for the 2025-26 Niners, San Francisco’s defense has been found wanting.

It’s needed the Niners’ offense to bail them out.

Saturday, it was the other way around.

It was inauspicious stuff, folks.

Yes, if not for the feisty, opportunistic play of nickelback Upton Stout on Saturday, plus two missed Seattle field goals, the Niners likely lose this game by 20-plus points.

Again: The Niners might be good enough to win a couple of playoff games. And no matter what happens in the postseason, it’s been a hell of a campaign for San Francisco.

But winning three in a row? All on the road? Knowing that a team like Seattle or the Rams will show up along the line?

That stretches the bounds of plausibility.

The “hard way” makes for a great movie script.

But in the NFL playoffs, the hard way usually leads to a hard exit.