49ers games in December and January
 

It's amazing how much credence is being paid to the Rams loss in late October.

When you look at the Niners schedule from Dec/Jan - it looks like this:

26-0 Win vs. Rams. Defense looks good there.

21-19 loss to Cardinals not really impressed here

20-3 Win vs Pitt. garbage for the Defense vs. a very gimpy Rothlesberger

19-17 vs. Seattle they got run on a little here 124 yards. and BARELY got out of Seattle with this win

and finally

34-27 win against a horrible St. Louis team with nothing to play for and a head coach in his last days.

Please spare me about how this is the second coming of the '85 Bears. Good, yes. Great? Maybe but they'll have to still prove this to be remembered in the same breath as those Bears or the early 2000's Bucs and Ravens teams.

I haven't even gone into the fact that they were holding the Saints off for the #2 seed or that these teams all have losing records.

I'm not impressed.

Rickh, you are on the mark. There are a number of teams in the NFL with good stats and records against average to poor competition. The win over PIT is questionable on two fronts. First, as you said, Rothlisberger was a crip. Second, I think the Steelers are showing their age. When Denver put up 29 on your D, you have a problem.

Performance wise th 9ers were trending down late in the season and the Saints were on fire.

The Saints should be looking at the Rams tape from the last regular season game. If the Rams can put up 27, the Saints should be good for about 50.

Another of the tapes I would definitely assume they are watching is the loss to Arizona. Larry Fitzgerald absolutely torched them on long pass plays, of the exact kind that the Saints like to run. It basically only took them 3 deep passing plays at the right moments in the game, and the Niners offense could not keep up with that. And Arizona's defense is not breathtakingly better than ours.

The Niner defense is a creation of weak competition and a media hunger for a story -- team comes out of nowhere to recpature past glory. Good for Grim's Fairy Tales, doesn't play so well against a truly great offense.

Indeed ... the Whiners will go back to dormancy after this game!

In the Rams game C Brown got abused. Every since Strief came back and that quit on his team deadbeat from the bears (Kruetz) got out of the way, our O line has played well. We have become more balanced and only penalties and turnovers have stopped the saints offense. If we stop the 49ers run game and protect the football, they are in deep Poo Poo!!

The Rams lost came after the biggest win margin this season in the NFL. There is almost always a drop off after a win like that and the 49ers are not immune to it either.

They leveled the Rams only to come back flat against Arizona. If the Rams game was a blueprint then teams would have capitalized on it. It's not. 9 straight wins.

Next year the 9ers can win the division @ 7-9!!

the 49ers started taking out key defensive starters like justin smith in that last rams game because the game was in hand at the half. the rams made a furious 4th quarter comeback and then we put our defensive starters back in and stopped them cold.