It is about baby steps for Niners

A common critique is “Who have they played?,” and the corollary, “They haven’t played anyone yet.”

Like every other team in the NFL, San Francisco has played three games and the 49ers have won all three. They’ve beaten the teams placed on the schedule. So what’s the difference between a 3-0 49ers team and a 3-0 New England Patriots squad? Neither early-season schedule has been especially daunting, but the expectations are the Patriots should easily be undefeated because it’s expected of them.

The 49ers are afforded no such luxury. I liken the 49ers, right now, to a toddler learning to walk. There is a lot of staggering around and wobbling back and forth, always on edge of tumbling over. But at the end of the day, the baby made his way from the coffee table to your lap.

Two of San Francisco’s wins, the Buccaneers and the Steelers, were far from convincing. The 49ers needed some late-game heroics to win both of those games.

But the bigger picture should not quibble over how the 49ers got the win, but simply that they did get it because previous incarnations of the 49ers would have somehow managed to lose those games — see the two Arizona Cardinals games from 2018.

In what other season in the last five years would a San Francisco team win a game after turning the ball over five times? But they managed to do so against Pittsburgh.

Now with a bye week, all the talking heads (yours truly included) will have plenty of time to dissect and parse every play and every mistake over the first three weeks. There will also be a lot of scheduling win-loss predictions as everyone will now go through the rest of the 49ers’ schedule with a fine-tooth comb and “predict” which games they should win and lose.

Instead, how about we all just sit back and enjoy some early-season success from the red and gold? They’re 3-0 for the first time since 1998. Things could be worse — just go ask an Oakland Raiders fan.

***

It was no surprise to see that Menlo School girls’ tennis team swept all seven matches from Crystal Springs in the West Bay Athletic League opener Tuesday in Atherton.

The Knights are, year in and year out, one of the top teams in the Central Coast Section and in any given season, one of the best in the state and sometimes the nation.

But what caught my attention was that all seven varsity matches used a pro-set format instead of the standard best-of-3 traditional format. A pro-set is won by the player who reaches eight games first, by two games. It’s standard in high school exhibition and JV matches, but I’ve never seen it during a regular league match.

Menlo head coach Bill Shine said he can’t remember ever playing an entire varsity match using pro sets, but he said it had to do with the conditions.

“We were concerned about the heat. … It was almost a hundred degrees,” Shine said. “Both coaches, all the kids, wanted to do it. It was mutually agreed upon.”

Playing the pro sets simply sped up the inevitable as Menlo dropped only three games over seven matches.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117.