Playoffs?

by Ronaldinho on Oct 26, 2009 10:09 AM PDT

This isn't a predictions post. Rather, it's a ... what do we have to do, post.

It's rare that you see a team lose to a middling team and yet hear so much enthusiasm from that team's fans, but that's the situation we're in. All of a sudden, a lot seems possible. Maybe it'll be a mirage ... but maybe not.

That being said, we're also in a pretty deep hole. Arizona beat the Giants yesterday. That gives them three wins outside the division against decent-to-good teams ... against the Niners' zero. And they still have Detroit and Tennessee to play. Meanwhile, we still have to play Philly, while they get Carolina.

I watched a lot of the Monday Night game last night, and Zona looked really good. A lot better than they looked against us in the opener.

Leaving aside the game against us, it looks like Zona will be favored in 7 of their other 9 games - potentially putting them at 11-4 pending their result against us. I think that makes our game against Zona a must-win, so let's say we win it, putting them at 11-5, but we have the tiebreaker. So 11-5 gets us the division. 10-6 probably does not.

That means we need to win eight more games. Sweep the division, that's three. Detroit and Tenn, that's five. And this is where Zona's win last night really hurts ... because last week we could say, "Okay, we need to win two of Jax/Chi/Hou" ... but now winning two of those is no longer enough, but, of course, only two remain on the schedule.

That means we're going to need to, in addition to sweeping the division, in addition to sweeping Detroit and Tenn, in addition to sweeping Chicago and Jacksonville ... find another game to win. We will need to beat Indy, Green Bay, or Philly.

And it gets worse. Zona gets GB on the last day of the season, when GB might have nothing to play for. So we might need to win TWO of indy, Green Bay, and Philly.

Kind of intimidating. On the other hand, if we can make a run of it, it should put a dent in the "NFC West is weak" talk for a while. And it's worth remembering that Arizona has been nothing if not inconsistent the last two years, so they may fall apart. Yeah, I know, that's kind of wishful thinking on our part, so I wouldn't count on it.

So the margin for error has shrunk to just about nothing.

On the plus side, though, we might have an offense for the first time in a long time.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors.

Tweet Comment 24 comments | 1 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Philly lost to the raiders so I mean haha lol. The giants also aren’t that good thier defense is banged up and they have a WRs are all bascially rookies with the exception of steve smith

by 49erSalvatrucha on Oct 26, 2009 10:27 AM PDT reply actions

Unfortunately, whether the Giants are good or not ...

… they lost to the Cards, so it’s a win on the schedule. They’re 5-2, which is a lot better than we are. Injured or not, that’s a quality win of the sort the Niners haven’t really had much of lately.

Philly lost to the Raiders, true … but they also won a few games. Don’t cherry pick your results. Yes, we may have to beat Philly, and they’ve shown that they can lose to anyone. But it’s still one of the harder games remaining on our schedule. Either the second- or third- hardest, probably.

by Ronaldinho on Oct 26, 2009 11:17 AM PDT up reply actions

I said it before ~ I think we do beat Philly

And I think we can beat GB. But after what I saw last nite, AZ could well be a loss. They have three straight road wins and barring a meltdown on the order of SF vs ATL they look to be getting stronger ( and Boldin was almost playing on crutches last nite ).

The future ain't what it used to be.

by riderless on Oct 26, 2009 12:02 PM PDT up reply actions

They are 4-2

I think 49erSalvatucha’s point was that teams can lose games you don’t expect, so saying the Cards will be 11-5 is a bit premature.

by Brendan Scolari on Oct 26, 2009 7:02 PM PDT up reply actions

Normally I would agree, but things change when you can count on your defense showing up every week, and it really looks like theirs has finally turned the corner with the switch to Billy Davis as DC. They’ve always had ‘name brand’ guys like Wilson, Dockett, Dansby, etc. Their DL is absolutely crushing people now with the aforementioned Dockett, Branch, and Campbell and they have a couple huge safeties in Wilson and Rolle. It’s crazy if you think about just how big and physical that defense is now. :(

by znk916 on Oct 26, 2009 8:24 PM PDT up reply actions

No, I agree they look really good lately

I’m just saying it’s still possible they go 10-6 or 9-7.

by Brendan Scolari on Oct 26, 2009 9:47 PM PDT up reply actions

That point is reasonable, but ...

What’s not reasonable is saying, “Teams will lose games you don’t expect only when it benefits the Niners.”

eg, The Niners won’t lose to Detroit or Tenn. The Vikings won’t implode against the Cardinals. That sort of thing. Certainly us losing to Seattle isn’t any less likely than us beating Philly, yet how many people are counting on the latter and ignoring the possibility of the former?

The Cardinals will likely be favored in 7 of their nine games. They might lose one or two of them. On the other hand, they might win the games they’re not favored in, too. I wouldn’t place money on any prediction of that sort at this point in the season … but saying the Niners have to go 11-5 with a sweep of the Cardinals in order to win the division makes more sense than any other prediction, given what we know right now.

by Ronaldinho on Oct 26, 2009 9:26 PM PDT up reply actions

Your right

I’m just saying it’s possible they only go 10-6 or even 9-7. I agree that the road ahead is very tough for the Niners and they really needed to pull out the win yesterday. Here’s my rundown for the schedule:

@Indy: I’d be shocked if the Niners win.
Titans: Division hopes are all but over if the Niners lose this one. This is a gimme.
Bears: A bit tough, but probably a game they need to win.
@Packers: Tough, could go either way.
Jags: Should win, but not a given.
@Hawks: Decent odds, Qwest Field is always tough.
Cards: Must win.
@Philly: Very, very tough. A win is possible but we’ll be the underdogs.
Lions: Gimme.
@Rams: Gimme

Ultimately going 11-5 will be very tough. Unless there is an upset against the Colts or Eagles, we’d have to win every other game. There are very low odds of that happening. I think hoping for 10-6 is a more realistic goal, and that means hoping the Cards only go 10-6 or that is good enough for a Wildcard spot.

by Brendan Scolari on Oct 26, 2009 10:00 PM PDT up reply actions

That's why, if we go 9-7 ...

… I may well consider this year a success, laying a foundation we can build on.

Which isn’t a very satisfying version of success, but that was what I was saying in the preseason, and I see no reason to change it because we won some early-season in-division games.

by Ronaldinho on Oct 27, 2009 9:40 AM PDT up reply actions

I think that would be a success too

It’s been too long since the Niners have had a winning record. For what it’s worth FO give the Niners an 14.3% chance of making the playoffs, and has their mean win projection at 7.5. So I think 9 wins would be pretty good all things considered.

by Brendan Scolari on Oct 28, 2009 7:51 PM PDT up reply actions

You nailed it

Cards are legit, and it seems like all it took was dumping Pendergast for Billy Davis (ugh).

We need to win 10 games to have any shot at the playoffs, whether it’s the division title or the wild card. I don’t think 9 wins will do it in either case, because of how soft the Cards sched is, and with regards to the wild card, the NFC has suddenly become rather top-heavy this year. Consider:

Vikes/Pack in the North, maybe even the Bears although I think they have too many injuries.
Saints/Falcons in the South.
Giants/Cowboys/Eagles in the East.

We’re going to have to beat out 3 or 4 of those teams. We are not going to be able to luck our way into a playoff spot like alot of people thought before this year. We’re going to have to earn it by either sweeping our home games or pulling off a big road upset.

by znk916 on Oct 26, 2009 10:51 AM PDT reply actions

It's early

As I said in another post, it’s been so long since we’ve been in a legit division race I think many of us have forgotten how back and forth it goes. It’s too tough to predict wins and lossess since we can’t predict injuries, bad weather games, laying an egg (see Philly @ Oakland) or having a day where you pull an upset (nearly us @ Minnesota). Leading now does not equal leading in December.

To answer your question of what do we have to do: I’d say going 4-1 in the next five games is a great start. I expect to win home games vs Titans, Bears &Jags. So split the road games @ Indy and GB. We’d then be 7-4 heading into a likely rainy day in Seattle. How do we do this? Alex Smith making some plays up the field which opens up some running room for Gore. It may be that with Smith our PPG average stays about the same, the main difference will be that we have more first downs and TOP. That should help our defense reduce their points allowed.

Finally, I expected us to be 4-2 now but am not shocked at 3-3. More than anything I predicted most all of our wins and losses would be by one score or less. This is how the season is gonna be. We’ve now lost two close road games, hopefully that will even out with better QB play and we’ll take one in Philly and/or GB the way AZ did last night in NY.

You gotta bring ass to get ass.

by SpurredOn on Oct 26, 2009 1:23 PM PDT reply actions

I agree with your points

Although, I’m not sure what to expect from us at the moment. At least with Hill, I expected a boring offense, scoring just enough points to eek out a win. With Smith, do I expect his 3TD performance in one half? Or do I expect something more along the lines of the reason why we benched him?

I am thinking its the first one. I think, or hope, he realizes this is his last chance here in SF, and will take advantage of it. We have the threats to do what he CAN do, so I am thinking we’ll do well for the rest of the season. To be honest with you I think the Titans, bears and Jags are all must win games at home. I’m not sure we can afford to give up much more games to Arizona in the standings given the schedule they have. In fact, I’d put Arizona in the list of must win games.

I’d like to think we have 4 for sure wins : SEA, STL, DET, and TENN.
Games we SHOULD win: PHI, JAX, CHI
Games where either team can win: ARIZ, GB
And Indy: If we can get a win here, that’s a bonus.

I prediction is 10-6. I don’t think everything will fall to form how I have written it out, it never does. But switch a few teams around in that, I think it will equal out to 10-6.

But what we need to do to win those games?? I think we need to stop the dang 3 and outs to give our DEF rest between possessions, and score early. I think Smith will help us with that.

by ZonaBacks10 on Oct 26, 2009 2:43 PM PDT up reply actions

If

I was looking at ARIZ schedule… Seeing as how we play the same teams, if we can manage to beat Arizona again, and match them with wins and losses against the same teams, then we’ll win. The only problem… We lost to HOU, they beat HOU. They have MINN later on. They already lost to Indy, so even if we lose, and they lose to MINN, then I think we should be fine, granted we match their victories and we beat them in SF.

by ZonaBacks10 on Oct 26, 2009 2:47 PM PDT up reply actions

Same sched but opposite locations

Had we played Houston here, as they did at home, we likely have a close win (as they did) instead of a close loss. We also got Atlanta whereas they get Carolina. But thems the breaks. It would not surpirse me to see AZ lose a game we expect them to win (@ home to Seattle or maybe @ Tennessee in late November in one of those “how did that happen” kinda game). We’re due for an upset road victory.

As for 10-6, that was my preseason prediction and included the thought that we’d sweep AZ. I still see that and believe we’ll have to if we are to win the division. I would consider Philly an “either team can win” instead of should. I consider AZ here to be “should.” And Seattle to be “should” not for sure, since road division games are never easy and it’s likely to be bad weather.

You gotta bring ass to get ass.

by SpurredOn on Oct 26, 2009 3:14 PM PDT up reply actions

Not exactly the same sched

There are two “strength of schedule” games based on last year’s finish.

We play Atlanta and Philly. They play Carolina and New York.

They beat NY, we lost to ATL. Furthermore, Carolina looks like an easy W for them, whereas Philly is one of the toughest games on our schedule. (I think calling it a “should” win is assuming that the team that lost to the Raiders is going to show up, which seems unlikely).

Hence the problem. They beat Hou, and they are 1-0 in their strength-of-schedule games. We lost to Hou, and are 0-1 in our S.O.S. games. If we sweep them, it balances out those losses, giving us the tiebreaker edge … but since they’ll probably beat Carolina, we have to beat Philly or beat a team that beat them.

But if we lose to AZ, suddenly things get a lot bleaker.

by Ronaldinho on Oct 26, 2009 4:22 PM PDT up reply actions

Normally, I’d say 10-6 should be good enough to get to the playoffs. However, I’m not sure about this season. Dallas, Atlanta, Philly, GB, us, and Chicago are all in there for the two spots. 3+ of these teams could easily get to 10-6.

You have been DFiBrillated.

by Dubs fan in Boston on Oct 26, 2009 5:12 PM PDT up reply actions