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The 49ers haven’t started 2-0 since 2012.
The 49ers made it to the Super Bowl in 2012.
So, if the 49ers beat the Bengals in Cincinnati on Sunday . . .
What, you’re not good with the associative property?
Fun stat, right?
I’m not expecting the 49ers to make it to the Super Bowl this year. If you are a regular reader of the Jock Blog (thank you, Mom), you know that I am waiting to be surprised. Last year, everyone felt the 5-0 Jimmy Garoppollo finish to 2017 meant great things awaited in 2018.
How’d that work out for everyone?
So let’s approach the Bengals game with tempered realism. The 49ers have only won one game in the Eastern time zone since 2014. That game was last week, and it came with the great help of two Jameis Winston lollipops into the hands of Richard Sherman and Ahkello Witherspoon. Granted, those lollipops were created by the 49ers’ newly-minted pass rush. So the 49ers get credit for the lollipops.
Still, lollipops.
Andy Dalton, fresh off a 400-plus yard passing day in Seattle, isn’t a lollipop guy. Zac Taylor, the new young coach in Cincinnati, replaced Marvin Lewis, who coached the Bengals to zero playoff wins in his 155-year tenure in the Queen City. Taylor is an offensive mind and he has first-round talent John Ross at wide out. The Bengals do not want to start 0-2.
If it feels like I am preparing you all to be crestfallen on Sunday, well, you’re right. What, the 49ers are going to go 0-for-Eastern-Time-Zone for half-a-decade, then tear off a two-game win streak? Did you channel Bill Walsh with your ouija board?
Besides, the goal in sports is usually to go .500 on the road, then win at home. That’s the baseball model, as I was just saying to my good friends, Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford and Brandon Belt. Wait, scratch that.
One other thing while I have you. Let’s all ease up on the Jimmy G freak outs. He missed a couple of guys, yes. It happens. It’s called sports. He’s coming off an ACL tear. He has played one NFL game in the last 12 months. And he won it. Matter of fact, he’s won seven of the nine games he started as a 49er. I’ll take that, along with his pretty touchdown pass to Richie James, Jr.
If Garoppolo does not win at Cincy on Sunday, I have a modest proposal for social media: Let the guy have a postgame meal and get on the plane home. Can we at least strike that bargain?
However, if Jimmy G and the 49ers win . . . if Nick Bosa and Dee Ford and DeForest Buckner tear down Dalton like a weakly-constructed children’s playhouse . . . if Matt Breida catches a couple of swing passes and finds open grass in southern Ohio . . . if the 49ers go to 2-0 for the first time since 2012 . . .
Come on. You were supposed to stop me.