After an embarrassing 38:10 defeat at the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, the San Francisco 49ers There is no room for future mistakes.
The loss dropped San Francisco to 5-6 and the 49ers lost back-to-back games for the second time this season.
Luckily for San Francisco, no team has truly conquered the wide-open NFC West and taken command. Even with its current record, San Francisco is tied Los Angeles Rams and is only one game behind Seattle Seahawks And Arizona Cardinals who are each 6-5 years old after the action in week 12.
However, when you look at the bigger picture of the NFC playoffs, a division title could very well be the only path forward for the 49ers in the postseason.
San Francisco saw firsthand the strength of the NFC North on Sunday. The Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings and the Packers appear poised to gobble up three playoff bids, and the NFC East appears to be a two-bid division Philadelphia Eagles And Washington commanders.
In his meeting with the media on Monday, San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan expressed the sense of urgency he and the 49ers know they need moving forward.
“Yes, without a doubt. I think everyone knows it. You only have to look at it for a few minutes to realize where we are. It's nice when you're one game ahead of the first in your own division. So that says a lot, especially that out of our six games we can still play against two of these teams.
“But you also know that if you look at the entire NFC picture and don't win the division, being 10-7 is by no means guaranteed that you're going to be a wild card this year. So I think everyone from the outside and inside completely understands what the situation is,” Shanahan said.
As Shanahan also mentioned, the 49ers' back-to-back losses to the Seattle Seahawks and Green Bay Packers over the last two weeks are so painful.
“That's why the Seattle game was such a bad loss, and that's why last night was even worse. We know what lies ahead. We know exactly what this playoff situation looks like. This is it,” Shanahan said.
Now that San Francisco has dug a hole, it really can't think about the task at hand.
“But actually this week is all that counts. If you're going on a run and have to get a lot of wins to even think about it, then you better make sure you're only thinking about one thing, and that's Buffalo.
“And so we had a lot of things to worry about today. I hope the boys here take care of their personal belongings in the day and a half they are away from us. We will come back on Wednesday with full understanding of the situation we find ourselves in and ready to fight because that's all we can do at the moment is just fight back. And I will be very surprised that not everyone in this building when I see them on Wednesday is not ready for exactly the mindset that we need to achieve what we believe is possible,” Shanahan said.
If San Francisco can win buffalo (9-2) this week will go a long way toward restoring belief that this team can make a breakthrough in the final stretch of the season.
After Buffalo, the 49ers conclude with games against each other Chicagoagainst the Los Angeles Rams Miamiagainst Detroit and in Arizona.
The current NFC playoff picture looks like this:
1. Detroit Lions (10-1)
2. Philadelphia Eagles (9-2)
3. Seattle Seahawks (6-5)
4. Atlanta Falcons (6-5)
5. Minnesota Vikings (9-2)
6. Green Bay Packers (8-3)
7. Washington Commanders (7-5)
Arizona sits just outside the playoffs in eighth place, while San Francisco is in a stalemate with 5-6 teams Tampa Bay and Los Angeles.
