At least Kyle Shanahan, Brock Purdy, Fred Warner and the rest of the 49ers fully understand it now. At least they don’t have to spend extra time or energy denying or refuting it.

It’s early October, with months still to go in this long regular season, but this is already a terrible year for the 49ers.

Or rather, it’s been a series of minor hells, ranging from summer contract tensions to Christian McCaffrey’s lingering injury, to the Week 3 collapse against the Rams, to a string of new injuries, a general defensive breakdown and the excruciating journey from Sunday through the sultry purgatory.

The 49ers held a 23-10 lead over the Cardinals at halftime. They could have ended this game in ten different ways. They could have ended the day on a smile, with a big game on the horizon Thursday night in Seattle. But the 49ers instead trudged off the field as 24-23 losers, looking as bewildered and burned as the Levi’s Stadium fans who stuck around during the sun-filled festivities.

Afterwards, the 49ers’ leaders didn’t make elaborate excuses or pound the table with false inducements. They spoke clearly. They uttered no battle cries. Mostly they sounded like people who know they’ve gotten themselves into the inferno and realize it’s going to take a lot of work to climb out.

“I’m extremely frustrated,” Shanahan said of his 2-3 team.

“Yes, I’m concerned because we want to win football games,” Trent Williams said. “We have goals. But there is no reason to panic. We’re going to find out.”

“We haven’t won those tough games yet,” George Kittle said. “We just didn’t do that.”

Of course the season is not lost. It’s still early. If they bounce back quickly this week and beat the 3-2 Seahawks on Thursday, the 49ers will move into a tie for first place in the NFC West. The 49ers have struggled this past September and October, rallying late to get deep into the playoffs. It’s also becoming increasingly possible that a bunch of mediocre teams will make the NFC postseason this time around.

But something feels different about the losses to the Rams and Cardinals. The games can be overcome, but the ways the 49ers have crumbled cannot be ignored. This is not how a good team – or a team that can work its way up to it – plays at any time during the season.

On Sunday, Purdy had a pass tipped for an interception at a key moment in the third quarter and threw another INT in the final seconds when he was hit while throwing. Jordan Mason lost a fumble deep in Arizona territory as the 49ers were driving for a decisive score. Kicker Jake Moody was knocked out of the game when poor punt coverage forced him to make a saving tackle, which changed the way the 49ers offense was able to play. And the 49ers defense couldn’t stop Kyler Murray and James Conner in the fourth quarter, when one stop would have won the game.

Good teams win that game every time. The 49ers are not a good team right now. They are error-prone. They folded late. They have been a good team for years and have won almost all of these types of games under Shanahan. But now they’ve already lost a few this season.

“The standard here, man, is excellence,” Purdy said. “And what we have proven in recent years is the level at which we can play. That’s what we’re trying to achieve. But every year is different, just the team, the chemistry and bringing the guys together.

“It’s early in the season. We are still trying to find our true identity as a team. We’ll get there. It’s a few plays and a few rides away from the gelling and gluing together. But I am confident we will find it.”

There are of course even better signals. Brandon Aiyuk, who missed all of training camp due to his contract battle, looked like his old galloping self on Sunday, catching eight passes for 147 yards after running for just 167 total yards in the previous four games. And sometime in the next month, the 49ers should get McCaffrey back to boost their faltering Red Zone offense (just one TD in six trips Sunday). And then Dre Greenlaw would have to fly back on defense.