#san-francisco-49ers

#san-francisco-49ers

That's what happens when you step in for a future Hall of Fame left tackle after the first snap of the game and maintain a seemingly unattainable level of play. The standard is the standard, Pleasants said in the raucous 49ers' locker room Sunday night after a 42-38 win over the Chicago Bears. Everybody's done a great job setting that standard. Kyle (Shanahan), Brock (Purdy), George (Kittle), Trent (Williams). They built this during this standard.

SANTA CLARA Levi's Stadium's roar was finally quieting, and slipping out its back door all alone was injured linebacker Fred Warner, somewhat disguised by his hoodie but unmistakably overjoyed. Huge, Warner said of the 49ers' 42-38 win Sunday night against the Chicago Bears. Hey, one more. Yep, one more regular-season finale against the Seattle Seahawks to determine the NFC's No. 1 seed and NFC West champion, six years after Warner and the 49ers pulled that off in Seattle.

Logic and common sense suggest the 49ers can't win their sixth Lombardi Trophy playing the kind of defense they did Sunday night. But logic and common sense went out the window a long time ago, not coincidentally at about the same time as Nick Bosa and Fred Warner were lost to injury. The 49ers have a 12-4 record after a 42-38 win over the Chicago Bears at Levi's Stadium.

Check the math. The numbers don't lie, even if NFL general managers occasionally do. The 49ers are currently carrying more than $110 million in dead money on their books. That's salary cap space allocated to players who are currently doing anything but playing for San Francisco this season. In the NFL, $110 million in dead weight isn't a hurdle; it's a tombstone.

The Bears' defense is having an extraordinary year turning the ball over. The ball-hawk brothers Kevin Byard and Nahshon Wright are showing a preternatural ability to read a quarterback's mind and, as such, Chicago lead the league in interceptions (21) and total turnovers (31). They need to keep the giveaways flowing to cut the legs from a San Francisco offense quietly becoming a juggernaut.

Their young, patchwork defense so glaringly lacks playoff experience that defensive coordinator Robert Saleh recently summoned a couple of veterans to explain the playoff mindset that's required going forth. Safety Ji'Ayir Brown spoke up, having intercepted Patrick Mahomes as a rookie in the Super Bowl two seasons ago (spoiler alert: the 49ers lost). Veteran Clelin Ferrell also talked, having reached last season's NFC Championship Game with Washington but also having missed the 2023 49ers' postseason because of a knee injury in the regular-season finale.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Six San Francisco 49ers players were selected for the Pro Bowl Games. The same number of players were selected from the Baltimore Ravens, Denver Broncos, and Seattle Seahawks. MORE: Brock Purdy has 5 touchdowns passes as 49ers improve to 11-4 Six 49ers Selected San Francisco's Kyle Juszczyk is heading to his 10th Pro Bowl, the most ever by a fullback. Niners left tackle Trent Williams is the fourth offensive lineman selected to 12 Pro Bowls since 1970, joining Pro Football Hall of Famers Bruce Matthews (14), Randall McDaniel (12) and Will Shields (12).

"Ricky will stay back," coach Kyle Shanahan said. "He was close but not close enough."

When the participants for Super Bowl LX are determined, it will have a lot to do with quarterback play coming down the stretch in the regular season as well as the playoffs. And guess what? The resurgent 49ers are right in the mix. The 49ers are always better offensively executing bootlegs and rollouts, and Brock Purdy has been very good the last two games against Cleveland and Tennessee. Neither are world beaters, although the Browns' defense is formidable.

As we head toward the playoffs, three NFL teams are carrying more than $100MM in dead money. That represents more than a third of the salary cap. The 49ers are also on track to make the playoffs with more than $100MM allocated to players no longer on their 53-man roster. Here is where the 32 teams stand for dead money (via OverTheCap) with three weeks left in the regular season:

A handful of 49ers players, including Kittle, quarterback Brock Purdy and fullback Kyle Juszczyk, made their presence felt Tuesday night as the Sharks hosted the Calgary Flames. Kittle and his teammates were in the Sharks' dressing room before the game to read the starting lineup. Then, just like a few 49ers players did during the 2019 playoffs, they opened the door to the team's locker room right before the start of the game, as the Sharks skated onto the ice to Metallica's Seek and Destroy.

One of these returns, he vows, will end up in the end zone. It's always the goal, of course, but even more so since reporters filled him in earlier this season about the 49ers' historic struggles in the return game. They have not had a punt return for a touchdown since the 2011 season opener, by Ted Ginn Jr., who amazingly also scored on a kick return that game.

As relentlessly inept as the Cleveland Browns football franchise has been since its return in 1999, your San Francisco 49ers had actually not won a game in Cleveland since 1984, the days of Joe Montana and Dwight Clark (back then, Jerry Rice was still just a senior at Mississippi Valley State). Granted, the Niners don't play very often at a Cleveland Stadium that locals have taken to call the Factory of Sadness because of how frequently the Browns lose there.