![]() ![]() That combination accounted for 301 yards and two touchdowns in Saturday’s 41-23 wild-card playoff rout of the Seahawks, a strong signal that the 49ers have the weaponry to keep pace with any NFC team - and perhaps, unlike three years ago, the AFC’s top team. They can make weight soon enough.īad news for playoff defenses: Deebo Samuel is back to full strength and Christian McCaffrey has a full understanding of the 49ers’ playbook. As they turn the page to the offseason, they’ll have north of $30 million in effective cap space, many of their core players under contract and five top-100 draft picks. The Seahawks are set up to bridge that gap in the future. And it doesn’t take long for them to put the opponent on the canvas for good. The San Francisco 49ers - through home-run hits in the draft, top-tier talent acquisition and sensational scheming - are punching with a much heavier hand. However, there’s a difference between sharing a ring and sharing a weight class. The Seahawks’ placement among the final 14 was no fluke. They earned it by being better than most in the regular season, earning an above-.500 record while outscoring their opponents the latter is a feat that can not even be claimed by all 14 playoff teams. The 49ers clearly belong in this type of fight. Playoff losses can reveal the difference between mediocre and good. The losses, in particular, tend to be more revealing than regular-season defeats. Pete Carroll trains his players and coaches to treat every game like a championship bout, no one battle bigger than the next. Here’s how the sequence went down because it might be tough to remember that the 49ers were actually struggling before their overpowering second-half deluge. But it was Omenihu’s particular contribution - a strip sack recovered by Bosa - that sent the 49ers into full overdrive. Engines across all three phases of the game hit full throttle. The 49ers answered that question collectively, roaring to life in the second half to smoke Seattle, 41-23, and advance to the divisional round. “And I said, ‘We’re all big-time players, now who’s going to step up?'” “I told the guys, ‘Big-time players step up in the big-time games,'” Omenihu said. He delivered words that Bosa so often actualizes on the football field. “I was a little nervous,” Bosa acknowledged, “at how the tide was going.”Īt around the same time, Bosa’s fellow defensive lineman Charles Omenihu spoke to his cohorts. The Seahawks led the 49ers, 17-16, and the way they grabbed the advantage - an undisciplined personal foul penalty to set up a late-half field goal - made the home team seem unusually shaky at the break. But the halftime dynamic of Saturday’s wild-card playoff game was an unfamiliar one. The 49ers haven’t lost in nearly three months, so there hasn’t been a lot for Nick Bosa to be anxious about lately. ![]()
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