SANTA CLARA — The 49ers’ showdown with the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday is just not a must-win sport
No, no, no — that will be ridiculous. The season simply began.
So let’s simply name it a “you-better-win” sport.
What’s the distinction? The place’s the semantic separation?
It’s a difficulty of notion. These Niners have a repute to uphold.
The Niners see themselves as a Tremendous Bowl-caliber crew. It was a perception put ahead, ad-nauseam, by the crew’s gamers and coaches within the preseason — and it wasn’t simply lip service.
They, in fact, didn’t look something remotely near elite in Week 1, once they performed in a rain storm in Chicago and misplaced to the lowly Bears.
Now, they’re landing favorites once more this week in opposition to a Seahawks crew that, regardless of its 1-0 file, isn’t superb, both.
A crew or two comes again from an 0-2 begin to make the playoffs almost each season. That file, whereas disadvantageous, is just not a loss of life knell.
However a 0-2 file would finish the good thing about the doubt the Niners have been granted by so many followers and media, together with me coming into the season.
Sorry, you may’t say you’re a Tremendous Bowl-caliber crew should you lose to 2 groups who will probably be much more apprehensive concerning the NFL Draft than the NFL Playoffs come December.
The context issues. The primary two weeks of the season have been imagined to be the straightforward portion of the schedule — back-to-back video games the place the Niners have been huge favorites. Towards this hellacious slate of video games San Francisco pulled, there are only some of these video games on the calendar — they will’t go to waste when the AFC and two different NFC West playoff groups loom. This was imagined to be the stretch the place the Niners accrued a little bit padding.
First impressions matter, and if the Niners begin 0-2, it’ll take the remainder of the yr to persuade their followers and the media that this can be a crew to be taken critically for the postseason.
That’s if such an idea may even be thought of amid the quarterback chaos.
There are numerous soccer individuals who now not have roles in soccer, they usually all appear to suppose that the 49ers ought to return to Jimmy Garoppolo as quarterback.
Trey Lance is but to start out back-to-back video games, however to people like Mike Martz and Joe Theismann, he’s a bust.
Shanahan mentioned he isn’t involved concerning the exterior noise, however that doesn’t imply that he’s not conscious of it.
“I simply don’t account for it. That’s simply exterior of right here, and it doesn’t actually need to do with what we’re doing,” Shanahan mentioned.
The identical goes for Garoppolo and Lance. They may not pay it any heed, however they hear the chatter — as ridiculous as it's proper now. (My promise to you, expensive reader, stays the identical — there will probably be no critical discuss a quarterback change till the 49ers’ bye week the primary week of November.)
If the Niners begin 0-2, much more unemployed soccer guys will probably be popping out of the woodwork. Hope you’re prepared for somebody to mixture former Vikings coach Mike Tice calling Garoppolo a “winner” on Eric Metcalf’s podcast, as a result of one thing like that may occur if the Niners lose.
It’s finest to keep away from such a future, if attainable.
Right here’s the excellent news: The Niners are a significantly better crew than the Seahawks, though they've reverse data. Seattle’s protection is common at finest, and Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith did nothing of actual consequence in opposition to the Broncos in Week 1. Significantly, discover me his big-time throw from Monday. (Lance had not less than two versus Chicago.)
San Francisco ought to maintain enterprise within the residence opener, 26-17.
And in the event that they don’t, I worry for what sort of enterprise we’ll all be in heading into Week 3.