How much better are the 49ers than the rest of the NFC?
San Francisco didn’t need a full regular season to clinch the conference’s top playoff seed.
The Niners, by pairing their own 27-10 win over Washington with an improbable Arizona Cardinals win over the Eagles, clinched the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs Sunday, giving them home-field advantage up to the Super Bowl and a coveted playoff bye week.
Oh, and by clinching the top seed with a week of the regular season still to be played, the Niners effectively picked up another bye week in the process.
That’s not a bad way to end the year.
It’s also downright domination over the competition — the kind that, even with all his success, we haven’t seen in Kyle Shanahan’s tenure as the 49ers’ head coach.
Sure, there was a bit of luck involved in the process. The 49ers huddled in front of cell phones and a small TV in the corner of the visitor’s locker room to watch the Cardinals, a 13-point underdog, drive down the field in the final minutes to beat Philadelphia, the one team who could have taken the top seed from the Niners in the final week.
“Thank you, Cardinals,” Niners linebacker Fred Warner said, grinning from ear to ear.
The next two weeks will be a well-deserved — and much-needed — rest for the Niners.
Like any team that has played professional football for 17 weeks, the Niners’ roster is rife with bruises, scrapes, sprains, strains, and general pains. They even picked up a few more in Washington, with star running back and MVP candidate Christian McCaffrey spraining his calf and missing most of the second half.
Every team in the league could use a break. The Niners need the time off more than most.
San Francisco has the best roster in the NFL, but it’s top-heavy.
NFL teams love to ascribe to a “next-man-up” mentality, but the Niners are beyond that. They’re realistic — they know they need their stars on the field to win the Super Bowl.
These next two weeks will give them a great chance at having just that.
McCaffrey’s injury is unlikely to prove problematic with the Niners not playing another meaningful game until Jan. 20, at the earliest.
The break gives left tackle Trent Williams, who pushed through a groin injury to play in Washington, plenty of time to get right.
Defensive tackle Arik Armstead, who has missed the last four games with a foot injury, should be expected back for the playoffs, too. His absence has been glaring.
And Brock Purdy, who picked up shoulder stingers in back-to-back games coming into this week, can give that injury some attention now, too.
“Guys had to push through it at a number of spots. Hopefully, this will help them out,” Shanahan said.
Even the drop-off from lesser-known players to their backups has been massive for the 49ers.
Already a backup himself, safety Ji’Ayir Brown, a rookie, missed the game in Washington with a knee sprain. Brown’s replacement, veteran Logan Ryan, was signed at the beginning of December while on a cruise vacation with his family. He still looked like he was on vacation on Sunday.
Wide receiver Jauan Jennings doesn’t play many snaps, but his absence due to a concussion the last few weeks has shown how valuable he is when he does play. His blocking cannot be replicated by backups Ronnie Bell or Chris Conley, and his knack for getting open on third downs and in close-quarters situations was seriously missed on Sunday, despite the Niners’ comfortable win. San Francisco’s offense hasn’t looked fully operational without him.
Those guys aren’t Pro Bowlers, but they are two players San Francisco needs in the postseason. Thanks to Sunday’s events, they should be good to play the next time a Niners game matters.
Of course, with all good things, there is a downside.
The Niners need to figure out the appropriate way to handle this final regular-season game against the Rams — a contest Los Angeles might not care about, either.
“We’ll definitely try to rest some guys. But you can’t rest everybody,” Shanahan said. “You don’t have enough players.”
Indeed, like every other contest, the Niners can only make seven players inactive for the Week 18 game. Expect Williams and McCaffrey to be on that list. Purdy might join it, too, which would see him inhabit a role his injury in last year’s NFC Championship Game helped bring back to the league — emergency quarterback. (That role would make him inactive to start the contest but available to play should his two backups become injured or disqualified.)
But just because stars like George Kittle, Brandon Aiyuk, Deebo Samuel, and Fred Warner haven’t been on the Niners’ injury report lately doesn’t mean they couldn’t use some rest, either. Everyone is injured at this juncture in the season — it’s merely a question of how severe the injury is.
Ultimately, some starters are going to need to play. The Niners will have 45 active non-specialist players for a game where 22 players must be on the field. Figuring out a way to keep those starters healthy while still having them play in an NFL game will undoubtedly steal some hours of sleep from coaches this week.
The Niners must also deduce how to best prepare themselves for postseason play. With at least 19 days between Sunday’s win and the next game with stakes, “rust” will be the buzzword of the month in Santa Clara.
The Niners are fortunate, though — who better for Purdy and the offense to prepare against than the 49ers’ defense, and vice versa?
“We’re going to have a big week of practice,” Shanahan said. “We’ll figure out our roster as the week goes and figure out our roster for Sunday.”
“We gotta make sure we’re our best when our best is needed,” Warner said.
That ample meantime is a good time to reflect.
The last time the Niners were in a position to take the NFC’s top seed, back in 2019, they needed every second and inch of the field to clinch it. Dre Greenlaw’s fourth-down tackle of Seattle’s Jacob Hollister at the goal line will be remembered forever.
Sunday’s win will ultimately be forgettable, save for what it accomplished. San Francisco played a relatively mediocre game by their standards and still won by three scores. The Niners’ performance was perhaps written over by players, in real-time, as they watched Arizona drive down the field on those small screens.
But that 2019 Niners team that pushed it to the limit in the regular season played in the Super Bowl.
This team is appreciably better. And they should have no excuse not to be at their best come when that first playoff game finally comes to town.
