Did the 49ers Save Their 2014 Season with Week 10 Win?
Whew.
The San Francisco 49ers pulled off an overtime, on-the-road 27-24 victory over the New Orleans Saints in Week 10. The win puts the 49ers at 5-4 as the team heads toward the second half of the season.
Prior to the contest, 31-year-old running back Frank Gore predicted, via Cam Inman of the San Jose Mercury News, that the 49ers were playoff-bound. This might have been a difficult thing to believe, considering the embarrassing 13-10 loss to the St. Louis Rams in Week 9.
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That loss called plenty of things into question.
Among the concerns were whether or not head coach Jim Harbaugh's rumored rift with the front office and the locker room was bigger than once thought. There were questions surrounding the identity of the offense and whether this team was best suited to run the ball.
Winning helps put all that to rest. But to what extent?
Did this win help save the 49ers' 2014 season?
Sure, it helped. Any win helps. The 49ers now have a 5-4 record in the tough, hard-fought NFC West. This is a division in which any win is precious. Any loss can be disastrous.
So was this win a season-saver?
Perhaps. We won't know that answer until the end of the regular season. But the question is complicated by the fact that San Francisco's division rivals, the Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks, both won in Week 10.
Dallas, another wild-card seed, also won. Green Bay hosts the Chicago Bears on Sunday Night Football and, as projected by Odds Shark, are favorites in the prime-time showdown.
These respective wins do not help out the 49ers' playoff chances, at least not after Week 10. But as shown by ESPN Stats & Info, teams with a 5-4 record have a 51 percent chance of making the postseason.
This is a stat San Francisco will live with considering what the team has endured over the first half of the year.
If the season were to end after Week 10, here's a look at what the NFC playoff seeding would look like (minus the game final from the Bears vs. Packers):
This still puts the 49ers on the outside looking in. But with San Francisco traveling to New York to take on the Giants in Week 11, one has to feel a little better about the 49ers' chances.
Indeed, San Francisco should probably be viewing each game from this point forward as a must-win. But there is also the need to take one game at a time.
Here is what Harbaugh stated after the game (h/t NewOrleansSaints.com):
"Great win. [It was] an exciting win. It was a heck of a football game. I am really proud of our players. Anything can happen. Anything happens every week. I liked the way that our guys played and fought. ... It wasn’t perfect, but it was very good in a very tough place to play.
"
Harbaugh's assessment serves to remind us of a strange, yet ever-so-true thing: Football is a strange sport. Highs quickly turn into lows. The opposite can be said of the 49ers' recent efforts in Weeks 7 and 9, respectively.
Now, the 49ers have bested the Saints in Louisiana—handing New Orleans its first home loss since December 2012 (Carolina Panthers).
This helps give San Francisco a nice feeling moving forward. New Orleans may very well be one of the toughest contests the 49ers had remaining on their schedule. A victory helps put this franchise back on track for the second half—a portion of the schedule that still includes two critical matchups against the Seahawks.
Seattle travels to Kansas City to take on the Chiefs in Week 11. But it will be the following matchup against the Cardinals that catches the eye of most 49ers fans.
Now with an 8-1 record, the thoughts of catching the Cardinals have all but evaporated for San Francisco. The Cardinals beat the Seahawks in Seattle a year ago, and there is yet another matchup between the 49ers' two division foes in Week 16.
Who knows what implications these two contests will have upon the 49ers' future. But there will be some sort of implication. That much is clear.
What is clear is this: San Francisco's playoff future would have been little more than a bleak hope had it lost to New Orleans in Week 10.
Looking back at the results, and how close this road contest was, we can assume the 49ers' postseason hopes were pinned on a fourth-quarter, game-tying field goal, as well as the overtime heroics of linebackers Ahmad Brooks and Chris Borland—forcing and then recovering a Saints fumble that set up the game-winning field goal.
Do these seemingly small plays loom large in the greater picture? We won't know until the end of the season. But they are critical given the crossroads San Francisco was at prior to this contest.
A win puts this to rest, at least for now. But the victory at least helps maintain the 49ers' chances. A loss would have been disastrous. San Francisco can avoid worrying about that, at least for one more week.
All statistics, records and accolades courtesy of Pro-Football-Reference.com and ESPN.com unless otherwise indicated.
Peter Panacy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers. Be sure to check out his entire archive on 49ers' news, insight and analysis.
Follow him @PeterPanacy on Twitter.
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