It was less than a year ago that the San Francisco 49ers were on top of the world, preparing to play in Super Bowl LVIII against the Kansas City Chiefs. This season is a much different story, with the team undergoing a slew of issues that has resulted in it sitting in last place in the NFC West at 6-8. The latest drama to come out of San Francisco stemmed from this week's "Thursday Night Football" divisional matchup against the Los Angeles Rams.
The rain-soaked game was the first of the NFL season with no touchdowns from either side, but the offensive struggles were far from the main storyline. After the 12-6 loss, Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan revealed that when asked to replace the injured Dre Greenlaw, linebacker De'Vondre Campbell told coaches he "didn't want to play today" and left for the locker room in the third quarter.
Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles went in instead, as the team's only healthy player at the position.
"That's somebody who doesn't want to play football, that's pretty simple," Shanahan said of Campbell. "I think our team and myself, we know how we feel about that, so we don't need to talk about him anymore."
Campbell's teammates also had a lot to say about his refusal to enter the game. Tight end George Kittle said he hadn't heard anything about the situation until he got to the locker room and added that if you're on the roster and you suit up, you're "expected to play."
Kittle said he doesn't know how someone could do that to their teammates and had strong words for how he felt.
"I think that's ignorant," Kittle said of the situation. "And I think it's just dumb. It's just stupid, and it's very immature. I just don't see how you could do something like that to your team."
Kittle wished he heard about Campbell not wanting to play in real time because as a leader, he would've said something then. While this is not the entire reason the Niners couldn't pull off a win, Kittle explained that when the team is already down linebackers due to injury, it would've been beneficial to have Campbell in, or dress someone else.
"If anybody in this building got asked to go in, I would say 100% of everybody would die to be on that football field," Kittle said. "People are going through random things off the field, I can't speak on that. Whatever his decision was, it wasn't for this organization. It wasn't for this team and that's on him."
"It's one person making a selfish decision," Kittle added. "I've never been around anybody that's ever done that, and I hope I'm never around anybody who does that again."
Cornerback Charvarius "Mooney" Ward was also asked about the situation and had a similar response to Kittle. He said Campbell shouldn't have dressed if he didn't want to be on the field and added that his absence "definitely hurt the team."
Campbell's future is naturally in question, with a suspension or release as two possible options. When asked if the team would release Campbell, Shanahan simply said, "We'll figure out something."
In his first season in San Francisco, Campbell has played in 13 games with 12 starts, recording 79 combined tackles (three for a loss), two passes defensed and one quarterback hit.