They don’t give awards for this in the NFL, or keep stats on it, but there is one area where the 49ers are No. 1:

Most Boring Team.

There are other contenders, and the 49ers will have to be strong in their boringness for the last two games to lock down that title. But in Sunday’s 24-14 loss to the Bengals at Levi’s Library, the 49ers showed they will be tough to catch.

The only excitement Sunday was about an hour before the game when Snoopy flew over the stadium in his biplane trailing a banner, “Hold Jed Accountable.”

Even the banners are getting boring. If you can afford to rent a plane, you can afford to hire writers. Pick up your game, mystery flier!

It’s hard to be sparkling and entertaining when you’re losing, but the 49ers are like flat, warm Champagne. It’s a built-in boringness that seems to come from the top down. CEO Jed York and general manager Trent Baalke set the tone.

Granted, the 49ers have lost some big playmakers. But the 49ers didn’t do much with the players they had. Remember when York crowed about how the new coaching staff was going to bring out the craziness of Colin Kaepernick and his fabulous legs? That didn’t happen.

Offensively, at least, this is a squad built to be boring, led by head coach Jim Tomsula, who never met a punt-or-go-for-it decision that wasn’t an automatic punt. On Sunday, the 49ers spotted the Bengals a 21-0 halftime lead and trailed 24-0 when they joined the game by scoring the next two touchdowns. But they opted not to go for two-point conversions, which, down the line, could have put them one entire possession closer to a tie or win.

I’m sure Tomsula has analytic charts telling him that early two-point-conversion tries would have been a bad gamble, but tough times call for imagination and daring, and the 49ers lack that.

“We tried to be aggressive,” wide receiver Torrey Smith said. “Playing all conservative in the first half, can’t win like that. When we play aggressive, we move the ball.”

Smith then seemed to back off what some might consider criticism of the coaching staff, because this isn’t the type of team on which players tee off on their coaches.

But you can feel the pain of the offensive players, like Anquan Boldin, who said, “Too often we got off to slow starts and try to get it cranking in the second half, when that shouldn’t be the case. I feel like we should be aggressive coming out and just keep it going throughout the entire game.”

It could be that Tomsula and offensive coordinator Geep Chryst are conservative by nature. Which would cause one to wonder why Jed York, who at least talks like a risk-taking type of guy, would have so heartily endorsed the advancement of these two.

In this convoluted soap opera, Tomsula knows he’s fighting for his job, and if you gamble big, you can lose big, and maybe it’s better to not risk that extra beat-down.

It’s called covering your posterior. It’s generally thought that York and Baalke want to give Tomsula another season as head coach, because a one-and-done would be embarrassing for all. But if the 49ers continue to stumble and bumble down the stretch, York might surmise that firing Tomsula is the only way to keep the howling fans at bay.

Regardless, risk is not something Tomsula and this staff seem to embrace. Example: The main positive excitement in preseason was Australian rugby player Jarryd Hayne. You might think if the 49ers were willing to give this man a chance, they might have been a bit excited about Hayne’s eye-opening skills.

They were not. Hayne bobbled the ball a couple of times and was deactivated. Made sense then, but what about in recent weeks when the team needed something, anything to light up the players? Hayne wasn’t going to cost ’em a Super Bowl shot, but he might have provided some fireworks, some hope, some non-boringness.

Tomsula blamed Sunday’s loss on a lack of “fine focus” by his players, such as the two bobbled passes by tight end Vance McDonald that became costly interceptions, and Bradley Pinion’s shanked punt.

But focusing on “fine focus” overlooks the big picture, which is that, on offense at least, the 49ers are a boring team going nowhere, taking no chances. The fans have noticed.

“We love the fans to death,” Smith said, when it was noted that the stadium was half-empty from the start, and emptied out much more early in the second half.

Smith added, “I don’t blame them. We’re not playing good. It’s not fun to watch right now. Who wants to sit there and watch that?”

Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: sostler@sfchronicle.com Twitter @scottostler