The San Francisco 49ers lost Robbie Gould before the game even began, and anyone who has been a 49ers fan for awhile was already tapping their fingers on the table saying, “gee, I wonder what’s about to happen.”
Well, what we all knew would happen, happened. The game came down to a field goal — a missed one from Chase McLaughlin.
Um.... this is not where the ball is supposed to go. pic.twitter.com/Ie5EfA9Mq8
— Jennifer Lee Chan (@jenniferleechan) November 12, 2019
Could Robbie Gould have made that? We’ll never know. I know one thing though, the only thing sicker than that miss was verbal diarrhea spewed from fans after.
Look, I get that some people live vicariously through their team. If you saw my Twitter feed, you’d see a list of tweets chock-full of F-bombs, frustration, overreacting, and all of us arguing over how livid, animated, and stupid I get on game day. I GET it. Some of you want that escape from reality, and this is it. That said, going to a rookie’s Instagram page after a kick he missed, much less a rookie brought to the 49ers on short notice, during Week 10 (not even a playoff or a Super Bowl) is NOT really the way to express fandom or frustration.
The only thing worse than fans going knucklehead on McLaughlin’s Instagram was the commentary crew on Monday Night Football. After missing the kick, Booger McFarland said something like the moment was too big for him.
Do you mean that moment where he tied the game up and sent the 49ers to overtime before he made that kick? Or the moment where he shanked a kick? Because I think that prior moment wasn’t too big and he got it through the uprights.
The 49ers got a lot wrong. There were more dropped passes than most make in a day on wages, the O-line fell apart, and Jimmy Garoppolo made some dumb throws. There was also a field goal that should have been made.
And yes, I see those on Twitter “@’ing the players and telling them they’re garbage. I doubt they listen, nor do they care. But the one person getting a lot of the blame for Monday night seems to be McLaughlin, and this game is far from something you can put on his shoulders. He’s gone after this week and Gould’s back.
And we can all move on with our lives while those taking part in this ridiculousness can work on theirs.