San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan has been around the NFL long enough to know that transitioning from the grind of the regular season to the pressure cooker of the NFL playoffs is no easy feat.
Players battle to keep their focus and stay in peak physical condition over the course of 17 weeks with the primary goal of ensuring they make it to the postseason, all the while knowing that their season can then be ended in an instant with a single off-colour performance.
Maintaining the level of play and the intensity that helped clinch a postseason berth is paramount for teams hoping to avoid an early exit, yet for teams that secure their spot several weeks before the end of the regular season, avoiding heading into the playoffs on a lull can be difficult.
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That has been the scenario faced by the 49ers, who secured their playoff place last month in Week 15, clinching the NFC West title with a 21-13 road win over division rivals the Seattle Seahawks.
Since then, however, there has been no drop-off, with the Niners winning their final three games after sealing a place in the postseason to end the regular season as the hottest team in the NFL on a 10-game winning streak.
"This was the first time that I've been in this position, and our team—I think most of the people," Shanahan said on Tuesday. "But just to clinch the division as early as we did, just knowing you're going to be in the playoffs, was just different. Your goal is always to get there, and then you deal with whatever. And once you do get there, you try to make it the best you can, but to know that we won the division that long ago, it's been a challenge. And every week, you've got to get up because you know you've still got a lot to play for, and we've been able to do that."
The 49ers had the incentive of improving from the third seed in the NFC playoffs to the second seed, a feat they achieved by maintaining their winning run while the Minnesota Vikings slipped up in Week 17 in losing on the road to the Green Bay Packers.
Their reward for gaining a higher seed — a third meeting with the Seahawks, a team they swept across two regular-season matchups but one that would take tremendous pleasure in ending the 49ers’ playoff campaign in the opening week.
The Seahawks, of course, have history of dealing out playoff heartbreak to the 49ers, Seattle famously prevailing in the NFC Championship Game at the end of the 2013 season when Richard Sherman tipped a Colin Kaepernick throw to the endzone into the hands of linebacker Malcolm Smith.
But times have changed greatly since the rivalry of the first half of the last decade reached its zenith in a playoff game widely regarded as one of the finest of the modern era.
Pete Carroll, Jim Harbaugh’s opposite number that day, remains the head coach of the Seahawks at the age of 71 but he is overseeing a team regarded as having a large uphill battle to overcome the Niners.
Indeed, the 49ers, having surprisingly needed overtime to see off the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 17, were back to dominant form in the regular-season finale, crushing the Arizona Cardinals 38-13 behind a four-turnover performance from the defense and a prolific showing from rookie quarterback Brock Purdy and the offense.
Purdy threw for three touchdowns, strengthening what as recently as last month would have been an extremely unlikely Offensive Rookie of the Year case. Elijah Mitchell and Deebo Samuel both made timely returns from injury, the former scoring two rushing touchdowns while star running back Christian McCaffrey took a screen pass in for a touchdown, raising excitement at the potential playoff impact of a 49er backfield in which McCaffrey, Mitchell and Samuel each have an integral role.
San Francisco finished the regular season with a points differential of 173, the best in the NFL, their dominance in 2022 reflected by the fact just three of their victories have been by a one-score margin.
Yet one of those games was the division-clinching win over the Seahawks, a contest San Francisco dictated but did not completely kill off until the final drive of a 21-13 success, and the 49ers will be wary of letting Seattle hang around in a playoff contest where the inclement weather forecast for Levi’s Stadium could be an equaliser.
Star tight end George Kittle found the endzone twice in the road win over Seattle and knows total concentration will be required for the Niners to avoid a let down.
"In my opinion the 10-game win streak is awesome. It's really fun but it means nothing now at this point,” Kittle said after the win over the Cardinals. “It got us in a position of securing a two seed, so we get to play at home for two weeks. I mean, obviously, we have to win the first one and we'll figure out who we're playing, but everything is a little bit more amplified now.
“Hopefully guys are 100 percent focused on football and extracurricular activities are kind of just pushed to the side, whether it's friends, family, whatever it is. How about we just hunker down and focus on the next four or five weeks, whatever it is."
His sentiments were echoed by Fred Warner, the emotional leader of a 49ers defense regarded as the best in the NFL, who sees room for improvement on his side of the ball heading into a matchup with Seattle wide receivers DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, who have combined for 25 receptions of 20 yards or more as Geno Smith has excelled attacking deep after replacing Russell Wilson as the starting quarterback.
“It's a blessing, obviously, to make the playoffs and to have the opportunity that we have,” said Warner. “And I don't know if I've had this feeling that I have right now about our team and the opportunity that we have to go win this thing.
“This opportunity doesn't come around often but I want that to be the feeling for this organisation. It's about recommitting yourself. We have some things to clean up on defense. That's every week. But we have everything that we need on this team to do what we want to do this postseason."
The 49ers unquestionably boast a Super Bowl-calibre roster and they have hammered home their status as contenders with a remarkable run following a 3-4 start to the season. Against an inferior but still dangerous Seattle team, the job for Shanahan and team leaders such as Kittle and Warner is to ensure the exceedingly high standards they have set do not slip at the most important stage of the season.
And cornerback Deommodore Lenoir is in no doubt the 49ers will rise to that challenge.
“We’ve been playing playoff ball since Week 7 so this ain’t nothing new for us,” Lenoir said. “We’re going to go in with the same mindset, same intensity, be physical and whoop their a**.”
Touchdown of the week
There were five to pick from against the Cardinals, two of which belonged to Kittle as he took his tally to a career-high 11 for the season.
His first was the best of the bunch for the 49ers, Purdy doing an excellent job of calmly climbing the pocket and firing to the corner of the endzone where Kittle made a diving fingertip catch in another demonstration of their burgeoning rapport.
Offensive player of the week
There are a lot of candidates for this honour, including Brandon Aiyuk, the wide receiver who went over 1,000 yards for the first time in his career.
But arguably the most intriguing development from the Cardinals game was the performance of Mitchell, who looked extremely fresh in his two-touchdown effort as he averaged 11 yards per carry on a small share of the workload.
Defensive player of the week
San Francisco’s secondary has faced some questions in recent weeks as Lenoir and safety Talanoa Hufanga have endured mixed performances.
Yet Hufanga’s fellow safety Tashaun Gipson has been a model of consistency after signing in August and now leads the team in interceptions having snared two against the Cardinals.
Gipson is a free agent in the offseason after signing a one-year deal and Jimmie Ward, who has been pushed from safety to nickel cornerback due to a combination of injuries and Gipson’s emergence, said of his team-mate in the defensive backfield:
“If you put him back there. He can tackle, he can make open field tackles, he can catch the ball. You see how good of a ball hawk he is. He's a great safety and he fits with his defense. So the 49ers should pay him because he's leading the team in interceptions right now. He's a playmaker back there and that's what we need."
Tweet of the week
Quote of the week
“Unfortunately, we’re playing the Niners. And they're loaded and healthy and on a roll, and about as hot as you can possibly get, and doing it in a really commanding fashion too, with a young quarterback who's doing so well. Just kind of bucked the odds that everybody would think you could do that. Everybody in the media, anyway.”
Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, sounding a downbeat tone, perhaps to take any pressure off his team and harness some “nobody believes in us” energy.
Playoff superstition
We asked four members of the 49er roster for their gameday superstition and received some very varied responses.
Wide receiver Ray-Ray McCloud: “I’ve definitely got to listen to 50 Cent”
Edge rusher Jordan Willis: “I have like a routine that I stay in. I try to get in at the same time, if it’s a home game
Cornerback Deommodore Lenoir: “I take a shower before the game. I like to feel fresh when I go out there.”
Wide receiver: Danny Gray: “I just wake up and I give thanks to God and my cousin, he passed when I was really young, every time before I step out on the field I say thanks.
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