House 49ers

The Wound

Five thrones, all of them dynastic, all of them decades ago. And then the modern era, which has been a specific and repeated form of torture: this house has reached the final field twice recently and lost both, the second in overtime, having led.

The wound is that San Francisco is always excellent and never quite enough. It is a house that generates conference championship appearances the way other houses generate losing seasons, and converts almost none of them.

Last season it went 12–5, won a road playoff game at Philadelphia, and was then dismantled in Seattle, 41–6. Not a defeat. A demolition.

The Lord

Brock Purdy. The last man taken in his entire draft class, now running one of the most demanding systems in the realm and doing it well. The realm has spent four years arguing about whether he is good; he keeps winning while they argue.

The Knights

• Mike Evans — arrived this spring, at the end of a great career, for a house that needed one more serious man.
• Fred Warner — on the Watch, and the captain of it. This house’s all-time leader in the thing he does, past Patrick Willis.
• Deebo Samuel — sold away and bought back. He says it was always going to happen.
• Trent Williams — the Shieldwall, and the oldest man in the building.

Ancient Grudges

• House Rams. The oldest rivalry in the division and now the one that hurts most — Los Angeles bought Myles Garrett and became the favourite.
• House Seahawks. 41–6, in January. It will be mentioned every time these houses meet for a decade.

What Changed This Spring

Evans in, Deebo Samuel back, Dee Winters out to Dallas. Raheem Morris — who ran the Watch in Los Angeles for three years and won a throne doing it — came in March to run this one. A quiet offseason for a house that lost by thirty-five in the divisional round, and the realm has them twelfth as a result.

This is the second-oldest court in the realm. Nobody in it is pretending the window is wide.

Prophecy

That 41–6 was an aberration. Nobody in this building has watched it since.