The San Francisco 49ers are looking to avoid a letdown. Head coach Kyle Shanahan's squad is a 14-point favorite heading into the final weekend of the regular season. The Niners will host the Arizona Cardinals.
The 49ers avoided a late-season stumble on Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders. Rookie quarterback Brock Purdy and the offense found a way to overcome an uncharacteristically poor performance by the defense, earning their ninth consecutive victory.
The 49ers coach isn't ready to take his foot off the gas and knows a strong finish will have an impact come playoff time. However, he did give his players Monday off—a rarity. Sunday's win was hard-fought, and it took a game-winning field goal in overtime to escape Allegiant Stadium with the victory.
"I've been so impressed with them this last month," Shanahan told reporters on Monday via a conference call. "I haven't had to get them going. I haven't had to ask them to practice harder. I haven't had to do anything. These guys have been doing it the right way, week in and week out.
"We can't have that let up now. We have a huge game this week. I know these guys will come in Wednesday ready to go, and we have to finish this season off the right way, this regular season, and make sure that we're playing our best football going into the playoffs."
Shanahan is typically stingy when it comes to handing out extra days off. He knows it's tough enough to prepare for a game, even in a normal week. Mondays are usually spent reviewing the previous game's film, analyzing what went right, but mainly dissecting what went wrong and how to correct it.
Skipping on Mondays adds review time to Wednesday's already busy schedule.
"We've had some victory Mondays, but it's usually been when we've come back from staying away, or it's been because of a short week where we have no choice," Shanahan explained. "But it was nice to talk about a bunch of the mistakes and say how big of a game was coming this week. And even though they're getting the day off, a lot of the guys have come in and individually met with some of their coaches to do it, and we'll find a way to correct all this stuff before those guys get started with us on Wednesday."
Sunday's game against the Cardinals could be significant for the 49ers. The team controls the No. 2 seed but has a shot at the No. 1 seed and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. They just need to beat the Cardinals and hope the New York Giants can knock off the Philadelphia Eagles.
The 49ers won't know the outcome of the Eagles game beforehand, either. The two kickoffs are scheduled for the same time. After Sunday's game, Shanahan ensured his players knew what was at stake in Week 18.
"Definitely, just kind of laying the groundwork," Shanahan said. "We just had a big win that, obviously, it was hard fought, took all the way to overtime to get it done. You always want to know what is ahead of you."
