The #49ers aren’t getting hot at the right time. They’re just really, really hard to beat.
The 49ers are who we thought they were. And after a rocky start to the season that had calls for change reverberating from the stands at Levi’s Stadium, they stayed the course and rode the formula they concocted two seasons ago that took them to the Super Bowl. Now they’re in the NFC championship game.
This may not be how it was supposed to happen – with a 3-5 start to the season, a 10-7 finish and sneaking into the playoffs as the No. 6 seed – but it isn’t how you start, it’s how you finish. And the 49ers are playing their best football at the right time.
San Francisco’s formula in their 2019 jaunt to the Super Bowl was simple. They were going to execute their run game, play stout defense, and rely on quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo to just make a handful of big throws each game. It’s the exact formula they used this season, it just took them awhile to get there.
Injuries played a role with running back Elijah Mitchell in and out of the lineup with various ailments and the secondary shuffling constantly to try and fight the right mix of players. Now they’re locked in on both sides of the ball and the result is what we’ve seen so far in the postseason – the 49ers are just a good football team.
Through two games the quarterback play hasn’t been very good for San Francisco. That’s typically a death knell for a modern NFL team in the playoffs where quarterback play reigns supreme, but the 49ers are different. They weren’t built to rely on one player.
While Garoppolo has gone 27-for-44 (61.4%) for 303 yards (6.89 YPA) with no touchdowns and two interceptions, their defense and run game have carried them which was always going to be the case if the 49ers were going to make a trek to the NFC championship.
Against Dallas in the wild-card round their run game went off for 169 yards and two touchdowns on 38 carries. Their defense sacked quarterback Dak Prescott five times and held the NFL’s highest-scoring team to just 4.4 yards per play and 17 total points.
Saturday in Green Bay it worked again. While the offense struggled to get off the ground all night and didn’t find the end zone, they still rushed for 106 yards on 29 attempts. Meanwhile, their defense went to work sacking Packers QB Aaron Rodgers five times and allowing only 10 points. Their special teams picked up the offensive slack and accounted for all 13 49ers points with two field goals and a touchdown on a blocked punt.
Now they’re going to the NFC championship game.
It may be unconventional, but it’s certainly not an accident. This is how the 49ers were constructed. They bring their big boy pads on both sides of the ball. They win in the trenches, make life difficult on opposing quarterbacks, and chip away on offense with a whirlwind of different looks in the run game. It sounds a lot like 2019.
In an era where QB play is often the No. 1 factor in team success, the 49ers have plugged away without elite QB play thanks to one of the most complete teams in the league. They finished No. 6 in total DVOA, No. 5 in offensive DVOA and No. 7 in defensive DVOA. And now they’re one win away from going to a second Super Bowl in three seasons.
The 49ers haven’t gotten lucky. They didn’t just get hot at the right time. They trusted their process and rode the formula they used to build one of the league’s toughest teams. This is what the 49ers were supposed to be, and they are really, really good.
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