49ers: Notes from Week 13 loss to the Baltimore Ravens
By Sean Basile
If losing can look good, the San Francisco 49ers sure know how to perfect the art. They went down this week for the second time all season, but they still turned in a strong performance.
It wasn’t the result the backers of the red and gold had hoped for as the San Francisco 49ers fell to the Baltimore Ravens 20-17 in a high-level chess match between two of the league’s best teams.
The 49ers now have two losses on the season, and for what it’s worth, both losses have been highly competitive with a lot of positives to take away even though they didn’t leave with a ‘W.’
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For as dominant as Lamar Jackson has been this year as the frontrunner for MVP, it goes to show you how good this 49ers team is particularly on defense as they held Jackson to just 283 yards of total offense and lost the game on the back of a Justin Tucker field goal in the closing seconds.
Yes, it’s another loss for the 49ers who really want that number one seed in the NFC. But at the same time, they haven’t looked exposed, anemic, or overmatched in any of their defeats.
The way the Green Bay Packers looked against these 49ers and the Los Angeles Chargers, the way the New Orleans Saints looked against the Atlanta Falcons a couple of weeks ago, and the way most of the league has looked at some point this season.
They lost the battle this time in Baltimore, but if the 49ers were to see these guys again in a Super Bowl scenario, there’s a good chance they could get revenge, since there has been a bit of a trend with Jackson in that he’s been so effective on the count of still being so new to the league.
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We still need to see how Jackson fares when his running lanes are plugged up and he’s forced to throw the ball 30-40 times from the pocket. We still need to see him face teams a second time and study how they adapt to playing him.
A second shot at Jackson (even as hot as he’s been) would be an advantage for whichever team is going up against him that second time.
But as far as losses go, it was another “solid” one if you believe in such things for the 49ers, and now it’s time for them to head to New Orleans to see the 10-2 Saints in what could be a very similar game to the one we just saw here.
The 49ers are still a really good football team with a great shot to punch their ticket to a Super Bowl. They stumbled against the top two MVP candidates for this year, one of which is a for-sure future Hall-of-Famer in Russell Wilson.
Next. The 49ers have the best defense in football and the numbers back it up. dark
But they were highly competitive in both affairs and could easily still be undefeated right now.