Typically blowing out a 2-7 team wouldn’t be notable for a 49ers club with playoff aspirations. Sunday’s 30-10 win over the Jaguars was a significant victory for San Francisco though given where they were just a couple weeks ago.
After getting lambasted at home by a Colt McCoy-led Cardinals squad the 49ers were sitting at 3-5 and playing mostly uninspired football. Their season looked to be dead in the water until they knocked off the Rams in a major Week 10 upset on Monday Night Football.
Despite demolishing a good Rams squad, there were still question marks about exactly who or what this year’s 49ers are. Sunday’s blowout in Jacksonville gave at least a partial answer to that question.
They pushed the Jags around in their own building with the same formula they beat the Rams with. The 49ers threw a haymaker with a monster first drive. Against Los Angeles they scored a touchdown after an 18-play opening series. Against Jacksonville they used 20 plays to cap their drive with a field goal. That set a tone for the quick, methodical dismantling of their opponent for the second consecutive week.
The 49ers don’t just have it in them to be good sporadically. They have it in them to stack consecutive good weeks, and by quickly smashing Jacksonville they didn’t allow themselves to fall into the bottom NFL tier where the Jags reside. San Francisco looked like a top-tier team against the Rams, and did the same against Jacksonville.
It doesn’t matter that “it was just the Jaguars” on the opposite sideline from the 49ers on Sunday. The greater battle was happening in their own locker room. San Francisco needed to build on its best win of the year and they did so with authority. This looks like a team that should go to the playoffs, and if they continue playing like this, they’ll be a team nobody wants to face once they get there.