49ers re-establish defensive dominance, advance to NFC championship game

The 49ers’ defense had a December swoon, but with three injured starters back, the Vikings stood no chance.

Very few teams have benefited more from a bye week in the playoffs than the San Francisco 49ers. In losing edge-rusher Dee Ford, linebacker Kwon Alexander, and safety Jaquiski Tartt to injuries in recent weeks, a defense that had rivaled New England’s for the top spot in the NFL over the first 12 weeks of the season had been entirely mortal in December.

But with that bye, and all three important starters back in the game, the 49ers reminded everybody just what kind of defense they can put on the field in a 27-10 demolition of Minnesota’s offense.

Aside from a 41-yard touchdown pass from Kirk Cousins to Stefon Diggs in the first quarter, the Vikings were able to do nothing. Defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, a leading candidate for the Browns’ still-open head coaching job, pulled cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon after that score, replacing him with Emmanuel Moseley, and that was it for the Vikings — after that, the 49ers were essentially running a scrimmage.

“With our defense like that, it’s pretty fun to play football,” tight end George Kittle said after the game.

Kirk Cousins, whose narrative as a big-game liability was supposedly altered by a couple of good throws in Minnesota’s wild-card win over the Saints, finished his day with 21 completions in 29 attempts for 172 yards, that touchdown to Diggs, and this interception thrown to Richard Sherman when the veteran cornerback ran Adam Thielen’s curl route better than Thielen did.

Cousins was sacked six times and hit nine more times, and Ford’s return was one of the keys. Saleh and his staff often put Ford and rookie edge-rusher Nick Bosa on the same side of the field, forcing Vikings guards and tackles to spin off to deal with each one-on-one. It did not go well at all.

The Vikings had just seven first downs — the third-fewest of any playoff team ever. Minnesota’s vaunted zone running game was limited to 21 total yards on 10 carries. Take out the 41-yard touchdown, and a few garbage-time completions for Cousins, and it’s fair to say the Vikings’ offense did as little as any playoff team in NFL history.

This could not have come at a better time for Kyle Shanahan’s team. Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo completed just 11 of 19 passes for 131 yards, one touchdown, and one interception, and he could have had at least one more pick, as he seemed to think that Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks was invisible. This was not a team that was going to get to the Super Bowl with Garoppolo taking the thing on his shoulders.

But this was the defense Shanahan, Saleh, and general manager John Lynch built, and this was the one that showed up again. In weeks 1-12 of the regular season, San Francisco allowed opposing quarterbacks to post a QBR of 72.50, and only the Patriots were better at 50.55. The 49ers allowed a Positive Play Rate (plays in which the Expected Points Added were above zero) of 37%, and only New England was better at 36%. Per Sports Info Solutions, the 49ers’ defense saved 188.5 points below the average, and opposing offenses had minus -140.3 EPA against them. Again, only the Patriots were better in either category.

No defense allowed fewer completions (198) or passing yards (1,854), and though there was a vulnerability in touchdowns allowed (11), matching the interception total with 11 seemed to make that problem go away. The 49ers were 10-1 after 12 weeks, their only loss in overtime to Seattle, and the defense was the biggest part of that success equation.

Then, injuries took a big bite out of that defense, and everything went dark.

From Weeks 13-17, only the Redskins, Colts, and Dolphins allowed more passing touchdowns than San Francisco’s 12, which tied them with the Giants for third-worst in the NFL. The 49ers had just one interception in that time period, they allowed an opposing QBR of 100.5, their Positive Play Rate allowed jumped to 49%, their EPA allowed shot up to 32.2 (second-worst in the league ahead of only the Lions), and they ended the regular season with a 3-2 record.

None of that matters now; everybody got healthy in time, and it’s on to the NFC Championship game for the 49ers for the first time since the 2013 season, and possibly the franchise’s first Super Bowl appearance since the end of the 2012 campaign.

As for the Vikings, it’s one more opportunity to wonder if they put their money (all $84 million of it) on the right quarterback, and to perhaps acquire as many outside offensive linemen as humanly possible. Because they just faced a buzzsaw of a defense that could take the 49ers to its first Super Bowl win since the end of the 1994 season.

Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”