I have a simple request for the San Francisco 49ers:

Can you go 72 hours without being the weirdest team in professional sports?

Scratch that, I’ll take 48.

Just two days, and then you can get back to all the peculiarity that we’ve come accustomed to with your brand, one of the biggest and most important in the world of sports.

Because while other teams have issues, the Niners seem to constantly be dealing with crises.

And I, for one, have hit a breaking point. I don’t think I’m alone.

I’d prefer to be breaking down the team’s 53-man roster. James Thompson! Jacob Cowing vs. Jordan Watkins. Who is this team’s starting left guard?

You know, nitty-gritty football stuff. Normal stuff.

Instead, we’re all subjected to the nitty-gritty of real life, like when we woke up Monday to the news that team owner and billionaire Jed York was caught in a prostitution operation at a rural Ohio trailer park over the weekend.

We don’t even need to couch this with “allegedly” or “reportedly.” His case is fully adjudicated.

He has already served his time in jail for his crime after pleading no contest to a lesser charge.

Pair that with Kyle Shanahan’s secret car crash (which somehow dragged autonomous vehicles into the conversation) and Brandon Aiyuk’s daily internet spiral (which, mercifully, is already on hiatus), which led to our discovery of something the NFL calls the “left team” list, and there’s only one conclusion:

It’s all just a bit too much.

As York once tweeted, “Hollywood couldn’t script this.”

That’s true, mostly because the real-life travails of the 49ers would make a Taylor Sheridan script look grounded and subtle.

John Lynch has largely steered clear of the classic locker room rap sheets of previous 49ers eras, and yet we can’t escape the controversy that radiates from Santa Clara.

It’s as if they made a deal with the devil, trading conventional misconduct for avant-garde absurdity.

(And knowing the Niners, it was a real drag-it-out negotiation.)

Aiyuk got paid a mint to catch passes and almost immediately turned into Washington’s most vocal digital cheerleader from the reserve list.

Shanahan had a traffic crash, and the organization treated basic facts of the incident like they deserved top-secret government clearance.

Then York arranges a $140 encounter on a Sunday morning, and lands in a jail cell with a mug-shot that will never go away.

If only memes had a statute of limitations.

With that $140, York bought himself a lifetime of punchlines at his expense and, presumably, years of hiding from the spotlight.

This level of dysfunction usually requires a half-decade on the Raiders beat just to build up an immunity. (Luckily, as Aaron Rodgers would say, I’m immunized.)

But things are so deeply strange with the Niners that even a minor story spirals into a full-blown conspiracy these days.

For instance, when Christian McCaffrey takes a scheduled (but not publicly announced) camp breather, supposedly reputable national reporters started suggesting that it was a contract negotiation tactic.

But why not guess it’s something larger than some paid time off? What with the Niners is ever what it seems?

And perhaps here’s the craziest part: It probably won’t affect the team on the field at all.

Everything about this team is weird. The vibes? They’re way off.

But the football machine doesn’t seem affected at all.

The head coach is out of commission for the start of training camp? No big deal.

Your highly paid receiver is melting down in public? Things remain on schedule.

The owner is arrested halfway across the country? The show goes on.

Brock Purdy’s massive contract looks like a steal when you consider all the hazard pay he should incur for being the face of this franchise.

Lynch’s massive draft whiffs feel like harmless clerical rounding errors next to his good work in handling all the off-the-field stuff that lands on his desk.

Other NFL teams keep scoffing and rolling their eyes. “At least we’re not them,” you hear them say.

Folks on the strange periphery, like me, are getting motion sick from all the head spinning one must do to cover this team.

And yet the players on the field are still rightly expecting to make the playoffs and compete for a title in the winter.

But I am exhausted by it all.

So again, I ask the powers that be, which might just be the omnipotent, mystic forces of a Santa Clara electrical substation:

Let’s just give it a break for a bit before this team hops on a plane to Australia to play a regular-season game nearly 8,000 miles and a day away from California.

You know, that totally normal thing that will happen in two-and-a-half-weeks.

____

©2026 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at mercurynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.