Coming off a Super Bowl appearance, the San Francisco 49ers sit at the bottom of their division with a 6-8 record this season.
Things seemed to be turning around for the 49ers after a 38-13 win over the Chicago Bears on Sunday until their Thursday night loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
But the win over the Bears may have been inspired by 49ers Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young.
The night before the game, head coach Kyle Shanahan had some of the 49ers’ leaders, including quarterback Brock Purdy, address the team in a team meeting.
In a video released Thursday, general manager John Lynch revealed to NBC Sports Bay Area that comments Young made the week before about the team led to the meeting.
“Steve Young had said something about grit or lack thereof of our team, and I’d showed it to Kyle early in the week. We respect Steve a lot because he’s one of us and he cares about this team a lot,” Lynch said. “We think we’re a very gritty team but hadn’t shown it, so we talked about who are the grittiest players we can put up there.”
Lynch didn’t share specifics of the messages but that they were about playing with desperation and urgency, which he believes was reflected in how the 49ers played against the Bears.
“From the first snap we looked like a team who played with a great deal of urgency and so, it’s not about the words. It’s about the way we played. Certainly played inspired football,” Lynch said.
What did Steve Young say about the 2024 49ers?
On Dec. 5, Young appeared on KNBR and discussed his thoughts on the state of the 49ers. He said that teams need to have “super talent” and “super grit” if they want to be successful in the NFL.
“You have to come together, and the teams that have super talent and super grit, they’re at the top of the league,” Young said. “We’ve always been both, and through injury we’ve suffered a little bit. What I don’t like to see is us not be gritty.”
Young said the Lions are an example of a team with “desperate grittiness” right now that has propelled them to comeback wins.
“It’s not gone. It can’t be gone. Don’t tell me it’s gone because it can’t be gone, and we got to find it,” Young said.
The loss of grit can quickly lead to a team’s downfall.
“As soon as you lose that sense (of grit) as a group, then things can start to devolve quickly and that’s why I’m afraid,” he said.