SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Steve Mariucci is conceding what has become very obvious: The San Francisco 49ers are not very good, and they face a lengthy and perhaps trying rebuilding process.
"We all know where we are now and what has transpired over the years," the 49ers coach said Tuesday, the day after Green Bay beat San Francisco 20-3, sending the 49ers (3-8) to their seventh straight loss."This has been a heck of a run for all of us. We've enjoyed all that. For a long time, longer than we should have when you think about it. But sooner or later, it's inevitable that you have to pay the fiddler, and we happen to be doing that now."
Monday night's loss ensured San Francisco will finish with its first non-winning season since strike-shortened 1982, when it went 3-6 one year after winning the first of five Super Bowls.
San Francisco's tumble this season has been just as dramatic. The 49ers were coming off their 16th straight 10-win season and advanced to the second round of the playoffs, but injuries to Steve Young and Garrison Hearst and a salary cap purge that stripped the team of key veterans planted the seeds of the 49ers' fall.
"It's not fun for anybody," Mariucci said. "We're without 30 players from last year's team to begin the season and then you get all the injuries that we've had. But that's not the dilemma. The question is how do we work ourselves out of it. How do we rebuild this thing? But the first question is how we can win some of these five games that we have left? Then we'll deal with next season, and we'll have to deal with some cap issues, too."
Meantime, the 49ers will be trying to get their dormant offense going again over the final five weeks of the season.
The play at quarterback in the absence of Young has been the most visible problem, though not the only one.
Jeff Garcia and Steve Stenstrom, both untested and inexperienced, are 1-7 since replacing Young, who's not expected to play again this season because of a head blow Sept. 27 that caused his fourth concussion in three years.
Ranked No. 1 in the league last season, San Francisco's offense has ground to a virtual halt. Monday night's 20-3 loss to Green Bay marked the third time in four games they failed to score a touchdown.
San Francisco, which scored 505 points during its Super Bowl-winning season in 1994, has just 166 so far this season, the fourth-lowest output in the league.
The 49ers defense has more touchdowns (4) than the offense (3) during the skid, the club's longest since losing eight in a row in 1980.
"You can't just lay it on the quarterback," Mariucci said. "Obviously, that's the guy that sticks out like a sore thumb, because he's the passer. We need to be more productive at that position, and we have been used to great production at that position."
The 49ers had Ty Detmer as Young's backup last season, but traded him to Cleveland as part of their $28 million cost-cutting effort to comply with the salary cap.
Stenstrom, signed as a free agent after starting six games for Chicago last season, is 1-9 lifetime as a starter and 0-3 since taking over for an ineffective Garcia.
Garcia was benched after completing fewer than 50 percent of his passes for three straight games.
Against the Packers, Stenstrom completed 19 of 35 passes for 195 yards, but had an end zone interception. He missed his best chance to throw his first touchdown pass of the season when he bounced a throw to wide-open Fred Beasley on fourth-and-goal from the 1 in the late going.
Mariucci said he hasn't decided yet whether Stenstrom or Garcia would start Sunday at Cincinnati. He said there is a possibility Pat Barnes, released by the Oakland Raiders and signed by San Francisco a month ago, would get a chance to play at some point this season.
"Steve Stenstrom is playing as hard as he can," Mariucci said. "Same with Jeff and Pat. They're doing everything we ask them and more. They're who we have, and we're coaching them and we're trying to get the most out of them."