The San Francisco 49ers have been to two Super Bowls in the last five seasons, and two NFC Championship games in two of the other three, but this year they’re in danger of missing the playoffs altogether.
San Francisco sit at 5-6 through 12 weeks, their latest loss a 38-10 hammering at the Green Bay Packers when without their starting quarterback Brock Purdy.
Purdy’s shoulder injury was the latest in a long line of them for the banged-up Niners, with key contributors Nick Bosa, Trent Williams, Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle and Deebo Samuel all sidelined at various points through the season, and No 1 receiver Brandon Aiyuk out for the year.
Despite all this, the 49ers sit just one win outside of first place in their division, with the Seattle Seahawks (6-5), Arizona Cardinals (6-5), Los Angeles Rams (5-6) and San Francisco all bunched up together battling it out for potentially just the one postseason berth.
Could it be the 49ers, who next head into Buffalo to take on the 9-2 Bills on Sunday Night Football – live on Sky Sports NFL from 1.20am, Monday – that ultimately prevail from the pack?
Neil Reynolds, Jeff Reinebold and Phoebe Schecter from the the Inside The Huddle Podcast gave their thoughts…
‘The stuffing has been knocked out of the Niners’
Sky Sports’ Neil Reynolds: “The Niners are 5-6 and heading to the 9-2 Bills, who are coming off their bye week. It feels like these teams are on two very different paths right now.
“There was a shot of Kyle Shanahan (during the loss in Green Bay), he looked so stressed, like he’s aged this year.
“And I was watching the game thinking, ‘Where’s Fred Warner?’ He has so many games where he screams for your attention, and that’s because I think much of his game is led by his intelligence, but also by intensity. I just feel like the stuffing has been knocked out of the 49ers right now.
“It felt like the loss of Brock Purdy was the last straw. It was a really bad night for the Niners, their body language and the way they played would have been alarming.
“But they’re still in it… Seattle, at the top of that division at 6-5, there’s not anything between those teams, really.
“They’ve just got to hang in there, try and get over the line, and once they’re in, we know that their weapons are dangerous.”
‘Too early to write the 49ers’ obituary’
Sky Sports’ Jeff Reinebold: “I think it’s too early to write their obituary, but certainly this team has got to get healthy, number one.
“You look at that laundry list of players that they’ve got out, and you’re talking about significant contributors. Trent Williams gone, Nick Bosa gone – you go right through the whole team.
“If it doesn’t slip away from them, if they don’t go on a bad streak until they get healthy, they’ve got a chance.
“George Kittle, to me, give me Kittle for the best tight end in the league right now. I just think he’s something, he keeps making play after play.
“And that division, you look at the 49ers, the Rams, the Seahawks and the Cardinals, it’s anybody’s game still, anybody’s race – plus, they all have to play each other down the stretch.
“I think it’s going to be the team that gets healthy and gets hot at the end that will go into the playoffs.”
‘McCaffrey not as explosive as we’d hoped’
Sky Sports’ Phoebe Schecter: “I don’t know where you place the 49ers right now. We’ve said a couple of times that they’re really in the middle of the pack in terms of what they’re doing.
“Even Christian McCaffrey, he’s not as explosive as we hoped he would be. You add a kind of lingering Achilles issue into the mix, in the cold of Buffalo, I just don’t have faith that he’s going to be able to break off some really big runs. And that’s almost what they’ve been relying on as a team.
“I think the Bills, especially coming out their bye week, are in a much better position right now – especially being at home, for what could be a snow game. All of those factors and variables really favour the Bills.”
Watch the Pittsburgh Steelers against the Cincinnati Bengals from 6pm live on Sky Sports NFL on Sunday, followed by the Philadelphia Eagles against the Baltimore Ravens and the Buffalo Bills versus the San Francisco 49ers
