After an embarrassing 38-10 loss at the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, the San Francisco 49ers are running out of room for future errors.
The loss dropped San Francisco to 5-6 and saw the 49ers lose back-to-back games for the second time this season.
Fortunately for San Francisco’s sake, no team has truly grabbed hold of and seized command of the wide-open NFC West. Even with its current record, San Francisco is level with the Los Angeles Rams and sits just one game back of the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals who are each 6-5 after Week 12 action.
Looking at the overall NFC Playoff picture, though, a division crown could very well be the only pathway forward into the postseason for the 49ers.
San Francisco saw firsthand on Sunday the strength of the NFC North. The Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings and Packers appear poised to swallow up three playoff bids and the NFC East looks like a two-bid division with the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders.
In his meeting with the media on Monday, San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan expressed the sense of urgency that he and the 49ers know they need to have moving forward.
“Yeah, without a doubt. I think everyone knows. You’ve just got to look at it for a couple minutes to realize where we’re at. It’s nice when you’re one game out of first in your own division. So that does say a lot, especially being able to play two of those teams left of our six games.
“But you also know, you look at the whole NFC picture and if you don’t win the division, it’s 10-7 not guaranteed to get in as a Wild Card by any means this year. So I think everyone understands completely outside and inside what the situation is,” Shanahan said.
As Shanahan also discussed, it’s why the 49ers’ consecutive losses versus the Seattle Seahawks and at the Green Bay Packers the past two weeks sting so much.
“That’s why that Seattle game was so tough of a loss and that’s why last night was even worse. We know what we got ahead of us. We know exactly what that playoff situation is. That is what it is,” Shanahan said.
Now that it’s dug itself a hole, San Francisco truly can’t think much beyond the task at hand.
“But really all that matters is this week. When you do need to go on a run and put a lot of wins to even think of that, then you better make sure you’re only thinking of one thing and that’s Buffalo.
“And so, we’ve had to take care of a lot of stuff today. I’m hoping that guys will take care of their bodies stuff here over the day and a half they’re away from us. We’ll come back Wednesday fully understanding the situation we’re in and coming back ready to fight because that’s all we can do right now is just fight our butts off. And I’ll be very surprised that not every guy in this building when I see them Wednesday isn’t ready for that exact mindset that we’re going to need to pull off what we feel we can,” Shanahan said.
If San Francisco can win at Buffalo (9-2) this week, that will go a long way toward restoring the belief that this team can make a push during the season’s stretch run.
After Buffalo, the 49ers close with games versus Chicago, versus the Los Angeles Rams, at Miami, versus Detroit and at 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 is just outside the playoff picture in eighth place, while San Francisco is in a logjam with fellow 5-6 squads Tampa Bay and Los Angeles.
