If you were blessed to miss the first 15 games of the 49ers’ 2024 season, San Francisco gave you a Cliff Notes version of it Sunday in Miami.

The 29-17 loss to the Dolphins perfectly encapsulated the campaign: statistically strong but fundamentally rotten.

On Sunday, the Niners averaged more yards per play than the Dophins. San Francisco’s defense held Miami to 4-of-12 on third downs and only one red-zone touchdown in three tries.

Check a spreadsheet, and the Niners did well.

It’s too bad football isn’t played on a spreadsheet.

On the actual grass, in a game played by well-compensated men, the Niners were a disaster. Sunday’s game brought another string of injuries and some of the worst situational football you’ll ever see on both sides of the ball, resulting in a loss.

Yes, Sunday’s performance was the same kind of game that was explained away early in the season, bemoaned in the fall and has become unavoidable in the twilight of the campaign.

The Niners had 11 penalties for 90 critical yards, doubling up a not-exactly-buttoned-up Dolphins squad in that category. They couldn’t run the ball, which was supposed to be head coach and offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan’s whole “thing.” They converted only 5-of-14 third and fourth-down situations, and Brock Purdy, playing behind a backup offensive line, threw a game-sealing interception with two minutes to play.

I’m getting second-hand embarrassment just typing this stuff.

“No matter what’s going on, when you have those penalties like that, you don’t deserve the win. The offense — the biggest thing was lack of concentration,” Shanahan said. “[And] you can’t have three personal fouls on three drives [on defense] in the second half and expect to win.”

And the Niners have not won. It’s hard, after all, to play two opponents every week: the team on the other side of the field and yourself.

That said, I heard many suggest going into Sunday’s Week 16 game that with the Niners playing unburdened games — San Francisco had no chance to make the playoffs before kickoff — they might play their best football. The pressure of a Super Bowl-or-bust season had been lifted; might the team’s play lift, too?

Oh, to be so naive. This kind of stink doesn’t simply wash out.

Indeed, we saw a contest in perfect South Florida conditions that suggested that the Niners cannot help themselves from self-destructive behavior.

In fact, it suggested that these Niners haven’t underperformed all season—they might have overperformed going into Sunday’s game.

The Dolphins entered Sunday’s game in a bad spot. They needed all the help they could get to win and stay in the playoff race. The 49ers provided that kind of help and more.

On the second offensive drive of the game, the Niners stacked a hold, false start and sack, turning a nice bit of early-series momentum into a third-and-23 failure and a punt. Great start, gang!

San Francisco was just getting started.

The Niners followed that with a false start on a second-quarter third down to take a bad situation and make it impossible.

Then the Niners took three points to end the third quarter despite being on the Miami 3-yard line in a six-point game without material meaning in the standings. That was lame.

The all-around failures kept coming in the second half, too.

“It’s happened way too many times this year,” Nick Bosa said. “It’s very frustrating all around — offense, defense, special teams. When you have that many penalties, that’s kind of a harbinger of a loss.”

“It’s just bad football, and I don’t put that on Coach Shanahan, I don’t put that on our wide receivers coach and line coach, tight ends coach, that’s on us,” said George Kittle.