Niners Nation
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The San Francisco 49ers are on a 4-game winning streak. They beat the Cardinals, Panthers, Browns, and Titans bya. combined score of 124 to 64. That’s what you’re supposed to do to “bad” teams (although the Panthers could very well be the Niners’ Wild Card opponent). You dominate them.
The schedule flips back to a trio of difficult opponents ahead, with the Colts, Bears, and Seahawks remaining. Both the offense and the defense will face various challenges. There are fewer questions about the offense. We’ll see whether Ricky Pearsall misses time, but that unit has hovered around a top-five-to-ten unit all season.
There are far more concerns on the other side of the ball. Robert Saleh has been backed into an impossible corner as a coach. Saleh lost the two players the 49ers built their defense around. He’s also lost some key depth pieces along the way, including first-round pick Mykel Williams.
The scoreboard is all that matters once the clock hits zero. The Niners’ defense got a little sloppy in the fourth quarter against the Cardinals and Titans, allowing easy garbage-time scores. For the most part, the defense held up well and got stops when it mattered in each of the previous four games.
Today’s question of the day is more about who the 49ers played than how they played. You can poke holes in every game, like the drive against the Browns in Week 13, where the Browns ran the ball nine times in a row and ended up scoring a touchdown on a 90-yard drive. Surprisingly, you could argue that the best performance during the past month came against the team with the best record.
Have you seen enough from the defense to change your opinion during the past month, or are you still skeptical?
