San Francisco 49ers: This team is good, but just how good are they?

The San Francisco 49ers are good, but how good? Are they a team to watch come Super Bowl time or are they a home-field advantage team that can be beaten under certain circumstances?

The San Francisco 49ers won again on Sunday and crushed the Carolina Panthers 51-13 to stay undefeated and move to 7-0 on the season.

The 49ers have made it abundantly clear they’re a real threat to win the Super Bowl this season, but just how good is this team and how are their chances if they continue to progress into a playoff scenario?

Looking back at this Carolina game, they once again surprised us all and took apart what I would consider a solid team in this league that could still make the playoffs in Ron Rivera‘s Panthers.

Carolina came into this past game on the heels of a bye week and an undefeated second-year quarterback in Kyle Allen playing about as well as you could’ve hoped for your backup to play.

Four-straight wins and seven touchdowns thrown to zero interceptions through four games is an impressive stretch, and a backup like Allen being able to hold the fort down like that is wildly impressive.

But once he took the field against this San Francisco defense, he got exposed a bit and threw three picks while going 19-for-37 passing and a quarterback rating of 28.9.

Not only does this 49ers team get it done on the offensive side with the crafty play-calling of Kyle Shanahan, but the defensive side led by defensive coordinator Robert Saleh is about as strong as any other defense in the league.

And if the New England Patriots’ defense wasn’t having the year it’s having, you could make the argument it would be this 49ers defense that would be on pace to be an all-time unit.

The 49ers run the ball more than any other team in football and average about 181.1 rush yards per game (second in the league behind Baltimore). Their defense is also first and second along with the Patriots in almost every defensive category.

Their skill players, now that they’ve added Emmanuel Sanders, are some of the best in football with an elite tight end in George Kittle and young receivers with high ceilings like Deebo Samuel and Dante Pettis.

But the one issue these guys seem to have is actually the aspect of them I thought was the strongest coming into the year. And that is actually Jimmy Garoppolo.

It’s not that Garoppolo has been bad or anything, but he’s turned the ball over a lot (nine touchdowns to seven interceptions with five fumbles mixed in there as well).

It’s crazy to think about, but the weak link on this Niners team seems to be Garoppolo at the moment, and that’s really saying something when you consider just how good he is.

When it comes to playoff time, is he capable of leading this team past an Aaron Rodgers or a Drew Brees in an NFC Championship Game? Can he go into Green Bay or New Orleans and win on the road if the 49ers can’t secure home field?

Absolutely to both of those, but turnovers could be his downfall if he can’t get them straightened out.

What happens if he turns the ball over at a really inopportune time in one of those games and one loss ruins their whole season? He’s thrown a pick in every game except one and he’s either thrown an interception or fumbled in every game this season, so ball security is not something that’s this young team’s friend.

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Moving forward, what the 49ers need to make sure gets under control is Garoppolo’s ball security. You can have the best defense in the world, but if you turn the ball over at a bad time in the postseason, that could sink the whole ship.

Other than that, I’ve been very impressed thus far by how easily the 49ers have taken apart teams I thought would give them some trouble like the Panthers and Los Angeles Rams.

Looking forward to this short week game in Arizona, the Niners meet a Cardinals team that just got beat down in New Orleans. We’re going to see just how well the 49ers stack up to the Saints by how they perform against this same opponent in back-to-back weeks.

The Cardinals are at home and they’ve shown tremendous growth in a small number of games this year. But with how tough the 49ers are on all fronts of their defense, I think they’ll be able to force a couple of turnovers on Kyler Murray and beat the Cardinals in this game.