SEATTLE—You could hear it between every line of every player’s answer, see it burning in Mike Singletary’s eyes, practically feel it emanating from the 49ers’ locker room Sunday evening.

The 49ers wanted to scream: WE’RE BETTER THAN THIS!
But they didn’t primal-scream it. They couldn’t scream it, because the truth is the opposite, and the truth is hitting them now.
They are not better than this. They are precisely this and have been like this for quite some time now.
The coach. The general manager. The owner. The players. Everybody has to be under the microscope now.
“We got ourselves in this silly hole,” Singletary said through gritted teeth after the 49ers’ excruciating 20-17 loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
“And we just have to fight, try to get out of it.”
They are 5-7. They are disappearing from the NFC playoff race. And they were not good enough to beat a soft Seahawks team in a game the 49ers knew they had to win.
They are falling short. There is no other way to judge it. They are not a disaster, but they are just about done for ’09, anyway.
“For us right now, we’ve just got to win every game,” center Eric Heitmann said. “That’s all we can do. We’ve got four games left. Win ’em all.”
Fact: The 49ers players aren’t talented enough to do that, as they’ve proved. Fact: The coaching isn’t sharp enough.
Fact: They started this season running and now they’ve gone pass-crazy, and neither mode has produced a series of victories.
Fact and fact: The defense weakened at the end Sunday; the offense didn’t deliver consistently.
It was, is and might always be all of those things for the 49ers, who appear destined for their seventh consecutive non-playoff season.
That was not supposed to be the way this season unfolded. Maybe that’s why the main emotion of the locker room Sunday didn’t seem to be anger.
It was more like the loss of all emotion. Emptiness. Blankness. The beginnings of resignation.
“We have big goals—that’s to go to the playoffs,” linebacker Patrick Willis said quietly. “Right now the chances of that happening are slim.”
Here they are in cold December, with the playoff race heating up all around, and the 49ers are the same tepid team as always.
They’re lukewarm. Room temperature. Just good enough to be just bad enough in the end.
And all that’s left is empty motivational charges for this emptying season.
“We’re going to come out next Monday night and we’re going to rock,” Singletary said. “We’re going to fight, we’re going to kick, we’re going to scratch. Hopefully win the game.”
Obviously, even if that happens, it’ll come at least one week too late.
On Sunday, the 49ers were just good enough to have every crucial chance to beat Seattle, and just bad enough to fumble, botch, drop and trip over all of them.
With Alex Smith humming passes all over the field (on his way to his career-first 300-yard passing game), they could’ve put this game away early. But Arnaz Battle and Brandon Jones fumbled away a punt return while trying a ridiculous reverse.
They could’ve taken control in the fourth quarter, but Frank Gore lost a fumble as they were driving for a score.
They could’ve gone up a touchdown in the late-going, but neither Vernon Davis nor Michael Crabtree could haul in catchable end-zone passes.
They could’ve stopped Seattle at the very end, but the defense gave up 38 yards in less than 21 seconds, which set up Olindo Mare’s winning 30-yard field goal as time elapsed.
“It’s hard right now,” Willis said. “It’s sick. We had every expectation of coming up here and doing what we needed to do to win this game.”
Singletary thought the final-minute 32-yard catch by Deon Butler was an obvious push-off by Butler. There were other questionable calls that went against the 49ers throughout the game.
But Singletary and his players also acknowledged that a quality team would’ve overcome everything. The 49ers succumbed—for the fifth consecutive nail-biting loss on the road and their sixth loss overall in their past eight games.
“I just think we’re capable of (making those plays),” Smith said. “I think the expectation level is higher. I know that. At least I think that.”
The 49ers built their entire 2009 mind-set on one idea that does not look so wise right now: They thought they were good enough to be a playoff team.
They are not. Which is just starting to sink in for them now.