{"id":41736,"date":"2025-05-11T13:32:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T13:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/41736\/"},"modified":"2025-05-11T13:32:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T13:32:18","slug":"how-the-49ers-went-from-the-no-2-overall-pick-to-the-no-1-seed-east-bay-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/41736\/","title":{"rendered":"How the 49ers went from the No. 2 overall pick to the No. 1 seed \u2013 East Bay Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE \u2014 It\u2019s emotional enough to win the NFC West and to claim the No. 1 seed in the conference playoffs.<\/p>\n

But to do it against your arch-rivals \u2014 the team that has authored so much pain this decade \u2014 in their stadium, your house of horror, well, that\u2019s an entirely other thing.<\/p>\n

A win like that can bring 49ers general manager John Lynch running onto the field with excitement before the game officially ended, celebrating the culmination of a two-year rebuild and a season-long quest and all the trials and tribulations that went with both.<\/p>\n

A win like that can leave left tackle Joe Staley, the longest tenured Niner, admitting to reporters after the game that he cried after Dre Greenlaw stopped Jacob Hollister at the one foot (one-inch?) line. Staley\u2019s tears came from deep-seeded, but easy to comprehend place: his team \u2014 the only NFL team he\u2019s ever played for \u2014 after eight annual tries, had finally beaten Russell Wilson and the Seahawks in Seattle.<\/p>\n

A win like that can and did bring catharsis, even for a group of players that, unlike Staley, don\u2019t have the scars from years of losing. More likely than not, the current 49ers were nowhere near the NFL during the heyday of the Seattle-San Francisco rivalry (or, in the case of Richard Sherman, they were on the other side of it).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always good to not have baggage, scars,\u201d Staley said. \u201cBecause sometimes they are painful\u2026 for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

And a win like that provides the 49ers an incredible opportunity \u2014 one that goes beyond the obvious.<\/p>\n

(Photo by Otto Greule Jr\/Getty Images)\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Francisco\u2019s 26-21 victory over Seattle was anything but perfect \u2014 that was a theme for these Niners late this season \u2014 but the way the NFC playoffs have set up for them is pretty close.<\/p>\n

The Niners will have a bye during the first weekend of the postseason. They\u2019ll then host both their Divisional round game and the NFC Championship Game (should they advance). This truth was established well before the game \u2014 the Niners knew what was on the line \u2014 but it\u2019s worth noting again, because it highlights how Sunday\u2019s victory was as good as a playoff win.<\/p>\n

But what we learned after the chaos died down and the glow the victory started to fade is that the Niners will also host a team (either Seattle, Philadelphia, or Minnesota) coming off of short week \u2014 playing on Saturday, Jan. 11, after a Sunday game \u2014 in that first-ever playoff game at Levi\u2019s Stadium.<\/p>\n

Oh, and San Francisco\u2019s top competition in the conference, the surging New Orleans Saints? They\u2019ll have to play two games before they can take on the Niners in Santa Clara, and a team that played in the Wild Card round hasn\u2019t participated in the Super Bowl since the last time the 49ers were in the big game \u2014 2013.<\/p>\n

Yes, the Niners have a pretty sweet situation for the month of January.<\/p>\n

And while the details of that optimal path to Miami might have eluded the team \u2014 consciously or not \u2014 in the visiting locker room after the win Sunday, it was impossible not to notice that the focus necessary to capitalize on such an opportunity remained present.<\/p>\n

Shanahan noted the message on the commemorative division-champion t-shirts after the game \u2014 The West is Not Enough. There\u2019s Nike, making the coach\u2019s job easy.<\/p>\n

Richard Sherman \u2014\u00a0himself once arguably the best player on a Super Bowl champion team \u2014 told his teammates to celebrate Sunday\u2019s win for 24 hours, get their bodies right, and be ready to probably play these very same Seahawks again in less than two weeks.<\/p>\n

(Photo by Otto Greule Jr\/Getty Images)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amid that all catharsis and joy and validation Sunday, there was not surprise. Every team has dreams of the Super Bowl in the preseason, but the 49ers truly expected to be in that locker room in Seattle, celebrating an division title. They carried themselves all season as such.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t forget, this is a team that had won nothing before this season \u2014 it\u2019s been five long, painful years in Santa Clara \u2014 but there they were, after the biggest win in more than a half decade, after a game that won\u2019t be forgotten anytime soon, downplaying the significance of the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a great locker room with a great mentality,\u201d Garoppolo said. \u201cGuys are ready for this.\u201d<\/p>\n

This being the playoffs. Garoppolo was already thinking about an indiscriminate opponent two Saturdays from now.<\/p>\n

And thanks to their wild second-half, the 49ers are battle tested for \u201cthis\u201d, too. San Francisco\u2019s three losses this year all came on the final play of the game, and while some wins \u2014 like Sunday\u2019s \u2014 went down to the wire, you cannot question that Shanahan \u2014 who lamented his team\u2019s lack of \u201cclosers\u201d late in the 2018 season\u00a0\u2014 found a group of players that have the mental makeup necessary to rise to the occasion this January.<\/p>\n

(AP Photo\/Stephen Brashear)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Players like Garoppolo, who seemed so calm and collected (though not according to him) during the critical moments of the game \u2014 both in response to Seattle scores and in the final moments, on the sideline \u2014\u00a0that some of his teammates couldn\u2019t help but joke that something might be wrong with the quarterback.<\/p>\n

Players like rookies Nick Bosa (the No. 2 overall pick in this past year\u2019s NFL Draft) and Deebo Samuel, who were arguably the best defensive and offensive players on the field for the 49ers Sunday. It takes a special breed of dude to not be wigged out by a that moment, that stage, that game.<\/p>\n

Players like Jimmie Ward, who would have been cut or downright given up after countless injuries, only to stick with it and prove not only his supporters right but the naysayers wrong by having an outstanding season as a key player on the defense.<\/p>\n

I could go on.<\/p>\n

But suffice it to say that there were dozens of stress points with this team \u2014 places where this season could have broken. Injuries alone would have undercut a lesser squad.<\/p>\n

Yet across the board\u00a0\u2014 and this is critical \u2014 the 49ers were a team that lacked excuse makers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who make excuses in this league are the people that don\u2019t last very long,\u201d Mike McGlinchey said. \u201cIt\u2019s all about when you do lose and when you do have the bad moments. How do you get better from there? And how do you learn from it? I think that\u2019s one of the things that this team does the best and has done all year \u2014 holding each other accountable, holding yourself accountable, and then make sure it doesn\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toughness, focus, and a no-excuse attitude? That\u2019s the makeup of a championship team. That \u2014 and a whole lot of talent coming to fruition on both the sidelines and the field \u2014 is how you go from worst to first in the division.<\/p>\n

And armed with health \u2014 at least as much health has you can have after a bye week at his juncture of the season \u2014 home-field advantage, a pretty sweet bracket set-up, proper testing, and the right attitude, it\u2019s clear that the 49ers have separated themselves from the pack in the NFC.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re now \u2014 unquestionably \u2014 the favorites.<\/p>\n

Luckily, that\u2019s the standard they\u2019ve held themselves to all season.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: December 30, 2019 at 6:40 AM PST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2014 It\u2019s emotional enough to win the NFC West and to claim the No. 1 seed in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[7,1921,7841,2812,929,6,84,252,9,2833],"class_list":{"0":"post-41736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-playoffs","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-inside-sports","10":"tag-jimmy-garoppolo","11":"tag-kyle-shanahan","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-nfl-playoffs","15":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-sports-columnists"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114489455172255490","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}