The 49ers finished a tough three-game stretch by beating the Saints 48-46 in Week 14 and then returned home to face the Falcons on Sunday.
It was a less energetic affair than the one in New Orleans and it had an unhappy outcome for the home team. They gave up a touchdown with two seconds left to give up a 22-17 lead and their spot at the top of both the NFC West and the NFC as a whole.
After the loss was in the books, quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was asked if the team was short on energy given the different urgency for this week’s game. Garoppolo thinks the Niners “could’ve had more juice in the beginning,” but didn’t attribute the loss to a letdown in intensity.
“I wouldn’t say it was one specific thing,” Garoppolo said, via NBCSportsBayArea.com. “I think it was just things going wrong, us not making plays when we needed to, just little things like that here and there that throughout the course of a game, they add up. Just little mistakes that we can’t make.”
The 49ers offense didn’t have the same success that they had against the Saints and that allowed the Falcons to hang around long enough to pull off an upset that will resonate into the postseason if the 49ers can’t jump back in front of the Seahawks before the year is out.