I thought you were a 49ers fan, not a Browns fan. Browns fans are the ones that must hope beyond hope that their team will somehow not place last in their division.

The 49ers are of course better than that. In fact, they were considered a Super Bowl favorite prior to week one and after week one. The 49ers have had ups and downs since then (like any NFL franchise in a sixteen game regular season). With that acknowledged, the 49ers have looked like the pre-week 17 Giants of 2011: Capable of tremendous wins, and vulnerable to the most undignified of defeats.

Can the 49ers win this weekend? Absolutely. Even with Justin Smi starting and Billy Akers kicking. Even with the no-longer top-ranked rushing game and an inconsistently explosive offense.

But which incarnation of the 49ers looked more Super Bowl ready? Which one looked more like the 49ers from the eighties and early-nineties that continued year-to-year as a shoe-in for the playoffs? Which incarnation looked balanced in all three phases of the game? Certainly, the version of the 49ers that looked like *those* 49ers needed only to play at their customary level to beat most playoff opponents into the turf. The 49ers are literally one starter away from looking like *those* 49ers, and not *these* 49ers. *These* 49ers look like they do need to play above themselves. That shouldn’t be necessary.

I’ve already bought my bag of chips, and dad’s got an I.P.A. waiting in the refrigerator for me. The call out for a delivery pizza will complete pre-game preparations. We’ll watch the game together, yell at the TV over bad calls, and high-five on touchdowns scored by the 49ers. There will be no “what ifs” if the 49ers can win this weekend. And the next.

And, yes, I will be wishing for the 49ers to play above themselves. Because, indeed, they will have to. I’m also enough of a fan to know that it shouldn’t be like that. There are no easy games in the NFL, but I didn’t go into the Saints or Giants games last year with this degree of foreboding.