The playoffs might be out of the picture for the 49ers with just two games left in the season but there is still one important thing this Niner team is playing for, a sense of pride that no Niner team has been able to feel for seven years. That’s how long it has been since a Niner team has been able to lay claim to a non-loosing season. No they don’t have a shot at a winning season but after seven consecutive loosing seasons a team has to take what it can get. That being said just because they play two of the worst teams in the league to end the year an 8-8 season is far from guaranteed, just ask Arizona what happens when you look past the Lions.

In these last two games the Niners need to prove to themselves that they have an identity and they are on the up and up. One of the ways that they can do that is not just by winning but also by helping out their star players finish the year strong. Every time a player has a great season it is the result of them getting a lot of help as much as it is about the individual players performance that year.  Just ask Patrick Willis if his stats would be the same if Abrayo Franklin wasn’t having a great year. In that way it can mean a lot to a team to have their stars go to the pro-bowl and if the Niners can get a few players to the pro-bowl (Vernon Davis, Justin Smith, Abrayo Franklin, Patrick Willis, and Andy Lee all have a good chance of going) it can do a lot for the morale of the team going into next year.

It may even take all of the aforementioned players having a good game to beat the Lions. Yes the Lions are…. well the Lions, but they are also the team that gave the Cardinals a run for their money last week, and the reason the NFL is such an interesting league is because it is such a fine line that separates the haves from the have-nots. Not that I expect the Niners to look past the Lions, when you have a loosing record you can’t afford to look past anyone, but I hope to see the Niners as focused as I have seen them all year in both of these last games of the year.

The game plan for the Niners must be simple, when you have the advantage of better personnel the key is to not get too fancy and let your players line up and do what they do best. In the case of the Niners that’s let Frank Gore pound the ball and open up the field for Smith to sling the ball around to Davis and Michael Crabtree out of the spread while mixing up formations and play calling enough to keep the defense on its toes.

On defense the critique is the same it’s been for the last few weeks, just don’t allow the big play. This might not be as easy as it sounds even against an offense that has struggled as much as the Lions offense has as they still have Calvin Johnson and Brandon Pettigrew. Considering the fact that the Niners offense isn’t what most people would call prolific and add on the fact that Mike Singletary prefers to take up time opposed to put up points when his team has the lead and the chance of a big play from the Lions offense changing this game gets even higher.

The best way for the Niners to take away the explosive plays is by making it a multiple possession game as quickly as they can. The sooner the Lions are forced lean on their passing game the harder it will be for them to set up the long pass play by running the ball and calling play-action. If the Niners can do that they have a good chance of going into the final game of the season with a .500 record staring them in the face.