After last week’s loss to the Titans the 49ers find themselves in a tough position. This two week stretch against the Titans and the Bears gave the Niners two winnable games that they needed to get back into the NFC West title race, and after their loss to the Titans this game against the Bears becomes a must win game. With the Cardinals having a two game lead on the Niners and an easy three game stretch coming up themselves if the Niners loose tonight they would most likely find themselves all but out of the playoff race.

That being said this game against the Bears isn’t a gimmie, although they are on a downslide they still beat the Steelers earlier in the season and have a prime time quarterback and in this league that always gives you a chance. One would hope that after a four game loosing streak a team wouldn’t look past anyone, but that’s what I was saying after the Niners lost their third game in a row too so we will have to see if they come out with the intensity we know they are capable of playing with. The next most important thing the Niners need to do is not commit turnovers. These are both defensive teams with struggling offenses so I don’t expect it to be a high scoring game, that being said every point is going to count and the 49ers cannot give up points on turnovers, their offense simply isn’t good enough to make those points up.

Outside of allowing Chris Johnson to rush for over 130 yards on them last Sunday the Niners front seven has done a good job this year, combine that with Matt Forte’s struggles and the key to this game comes down to how well the Niner’s secondary can cover the Bear’s mediocre receivers. This same area was a bit of a question going into last weeks game with the Titans mediocre receivers and the Niners secondary didn’t look so good with Nate Clements not being on the field. The Niners are looking for a better game from Tarell Brown and Dashon Goldson in coverage as both got beat by Titans receivers last week. What is really going to put the pressure on the Niners secondary though is Jay Cutler, although he may not be working with a group of receivers any better than Vince Young was he is certainly more accurate throwing the ball making it even more important that the Niners cut down on the size of his throwing windows.

After last weekend Mike Singletary embraced the offense that Niners ran, using more singleback and shotgun formations than I-formation plays trying to spread the field more to play more to Alex Smith’s strengths. Smith had a great half against the Texans three weeks ago putting up a QB rating of 118.6, but since then his QB rating has dropped in two consecutive games, and last week he had four turnovers though to be fair at least one of them was in a desperation offense at the end of the game. If Smith’s numbers continue to get worse and he continues to turn the ball over Niner fans will have to start to wonder if they will get a chance to see what the team has in Nate Davis, who played very well this pre-season. Granted it was the pre-season but for anyone that missed it Davis looked like the best quarterback the Niners had in the last two games completing a very high percentage of his passes when given time to finish his drop and step up in the pocket, and did a better job of getting the ball downfield then any other Niner QB.

The main problem for the passing game is going to be the Cover 2 defense that the Bears run. This is the same system that the Colts run and the game against the Colts was the only game Smith has failed to complete at least 60% of his passes. The zone coverage of the Cover 2 works well to counter act the Spread offense that likes to look for man coverage mismatches. However, the Bears are 21st in the league in rushing yards allowed so the Niners might try to use the run to set up the pass, opposed to the other way around like we saw in the Titans game, to try and open up the secondary for Smith.

If the Niners win this game they could find themselves actually gaining momentum, something they haven’t been able to say since the end of their second game of the season. If they loose however, then they will have to start looking to next year and possibly see what they have in a few of their younger players to see what they need to do in the draft. This is where we will get to see what kind of coach the Niners have in Singletary, as Mike Ditka says it’s easy to coach a team that is winning, what’s hard is helping a team that isn’t win some games. Niner fans are defiantly hoping for the latter.