Niners still aiming for playoffs

Associated Press

SANTA CLARA, CALIF.

The San Francisco 49ers are an NFL enigma. So bad one week, so good the next — and it’s hard to explain exactly why.

Other than inconsistency, of course.

They have no real identity on offense in large part because of injuries, and the only reason they’re alive in the playoff chase with a lowly 5-9 record: The Niners play in the dreadful NFC West.

“To still be in it, it’s amazing,” tight end Vernon Davis said.

No team has made the playoffs with a losing record in a non-strike season — so, this could be a history-making first for the West champion. Cleveland and Detroit advanced in the 1982 strike season with 4-5 records when the playoffs were expanded to include eight teams per conference.

“It’s unusual, but let’s not get it twisted. We didn’t make the rules,” San Francisco linebacker Takeo Spikes said. “We live in a society where the rules are made and we’re going to play in them. So we get the opportunity to do that, which we will with these next two games. Hopefully we’ll take care of business and we’ll set ourselves up with the playoffs.”

Even coach Mike Singletary has been perplexed by this season, by a team he truly thought would be so much better in his second full year in charge. He lists certain players who have had productive years, and points to a pair of rookie offensive linemen who have hung tough through their introduction to the rigors of the pro game.

Yet many have greatly underachieved. There have been quarterback switches and the 49ers have made a lot of the same mistakes that hurt them a year ago in an 8-8 season. That after Singletary and his players thought things were fixed and they were destined to end a seven-year postseason drought.

“It’s never over ’til it’s over,” center David Baas said. “We’ve got a chance to do something awesome.”

But it could be over as soon as Sunday, when San Francisco plays at St. Louis. A loss and the 49ers are officially done, leaving the Rams and Seahawks to fight for the top spot in the league’s worst division. San Francisco would have been eliminated last weekend if either Seattle or St. Louis had won, yet neither did.

Having won four of seven, San Francisco actually has been the division’s hottest team of late.