Coming off a heartbreaking overtime loss in Super Bowl 58, plenty were tipping the San Francisco 49ers to finish the job this season and finally win their sixth Lombardi Trophy.

The hopes of that coming to pass now look extremely slim, with a San Francisco team that has been beset by injuries 5-7 and two games back in the race for the NFC West title heading into Sunday's must-win game with the Chicago Bears.

It has been a hugely disappointing season for the Niners that has surprised many. However, even before all the injuries, head coach Kyle Shanahan had an idea the campaign could be a more difficult one than in previous years.

Asked about the mood in the locker room as the 49ers face an uphill battle over the next five games to make the postseason, Shanahan told his Friday press conference: "We understand where we’re at. We go to work and we practice football. We don’t discuss it all week, we don’t read all week. I get all that. I understand how the NFL works, I understand what our record is at.

"We knew coming into this year we were going to have to work to, I didn’t feel there right after training camp, I thought we had a chance though to get better as the year went, especially at the beginning of our schedule, which I thought was a lot easier than the second half. I thought we would improve and kind of build that as we went and I was hoping we could be 8-2 when we got to the tough stretch. And I’ve talked about those three games, which I feel we should have won that we let get away from us, and that got us to 5-5. 

"And then right when we got at the toughest part where I was hoping we would have had some continuity and developed into the team that I thought could really make a run and push some things, that’s when we took a, subtracted a lot of guys from us and we’re kind of at our toughest spot and that’s where we are now which, when you don’t take advantage of kind of what you had earlier in the year and you are in a tough spot, that’s why it makes it extremely hard to get out of."

Pressed to elaborate on his feelings about the team heading out of camp, Shanahan added: "I just knew we weren’t where I wanted to be, which rarely you are exactly at the beginning of the year. And that’s why you play and that’s why you get better as it goes and that’s what I was planning to do. That’s always the goal. 

"We weren’t able to consistently do that. It seemed like every time we took a step forward, we took two steps back and that was kind of how it went. And once you lose some close games, ones you think you should have won, that’s the difference between being 5-5 at the halfway point and being 8-2 at the halfway point from a record standpoint, not just the overall where your team’s at."

It's very interesting to hear Shanahan say he didn't feel the team was where they wanted to be given the 49ers opened the season by shellacking the New York Jets on Monday Night Football.

But, as the Jets have faded into irrelevance, that win looks substantially less impressive. As Shanahan alluded to, three division losses to the Los Angeles Rams, Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks in games in which the 49ers held fourth-quarter leads are the main reason why they are in such a deep hole.

Had the 49ers put those games away, the defeats to the Green Bay Packers and Buffalo Bills over the last two weeks wouldn't have been quite so damaging.

Instead, they have been left with a mountain to climb.

"We’ve got to do some special things to get out of this hole we put ourself in and we understand that," said Shanahan. "But you know, we can talk about it every day we have to come to a press conference or talk about it outside of here. But when it’s with each other, it’s how to play better football, how to find a way to get a win. And that usually comes down, it only comes down to playing better football."

Even with Trent Williams still out, Nick Bosa likely to miss a third straight game, and Christian McCaffrey and Brandon Aiyuk out for the year, the 49ers have the resources to play better football.

But the way Shanahan is already talking about the season in the past tense points to a team that knows it is fighting against the dying light. The 49ers are still in it, for now, but it's become increasingly clear that 2024 just isn't their year, and it appears Shanahan had an idea that would be the case very early in the process.

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There’s a chance for one of them.