49ers making run for playoffs
San Francisco has a three-game win streak and is one game out of first place.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) -- Just three weeks ago, the thought of the San Francisco 49ers making a playoff run seemed about as crazy as the idea this moribund club could ever win three straight games. Or that one of the NFL's worst defenses could ever stop anybody.
None of it seems so crazy now.
The Niners already have done the improbable with their first three-game winning streak in four years, beating the Seattle Seahawks 20-14 Sunday to move within one game of first place in the NFC West.
Many possibilities have opened up for a rapidly improving club that fell behind 41-0 to the Chicago Bears only three weeks earlier. But coach Mike Nolan is content to keep the playoffs as a distant, fantastical topic.
After Frank Gore rushed for a franchise-record 212 yards and the 49ers' defense finished off the Seahawks with three stops in the final 41/2 minutes, Nolan had no interest in looking ahead to January. He's not even sure this same 49ers (5-5) will show up for Sunday's road game against the St. Louis Rams.
Hoping for more
"I'm not there yet," said Nolan, who wore a suit and tie on the sideline in a nod to great coaches of the past. "Our goal starting out this season was not just to win five games. We've won five, but that's not our goal. ... We talk about streaks. We've got a three-game streak, and we need to build on that."
The 49ers had no trouble remaining humble after vaulting into the back end of the NFC playoff chase. This team still remembers blowout losses to Philadelphia, Kansas City, San Diego and Chicago earlier in the season -- losses that seemed to signal a fourth straight losing campaign.
But to the surprise of everyone outside the 49ers' locker room, the team's months of hard work have abruptly paid off with wins over Minnesota, Detroit and Seattle. San Francisco is at .500 at the latest point in a season since 2003, and could match its win total for the last two seasons combined with one more victory.
"We didn't start right, but we had high expectations before the season," left tackle Jonas Jennings said. "Our bar is set high. We still have some climbing to do. We're only at .500. There's still a long way we can go."
Defense gets better
The defense that floundered in the 49ers' big losses has made two significant personnel changes -- adding linebacker Brandon Moore and safety Keith Lewis to the starting lineup -- and amped up its aggressiveness. San Francisco has allowed just 30 points in its last 31/2 games since that Chicago debacle, holding Seattle to 303 yards and a scoreless first half.
Meanwhile, Gore's emergence as an elite running back in his first season as a starter has improved everything about the 49ers' offense.
Nolan has handed several game balls to Gore after recent victories, but the running back keeps giving them away to his offensive linemen. He had good reason to do so after the best game of his career: Gore spent most of the day running behind Larry Allen and Jennings, the veteran free-agent signees on the left side of the line.
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