SANTA CLARA — Welcome to the playoff fringe, a place the 49ers haven’t been down the stretch since Deebo Samuel was a wide back, Jimmy Garoppolo was the quarterback and it took an overtime win over the Los Angeles Rams in the final regular-season game to make the tournament in 2021.

That’s what coach Kyle Shanahan calls it. The tournament. And this year’s tournament concludes with Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium on Feb. 7.

About this time last year, the 49ers had fallen to 5-5 with a 20-17 home loss to Seattle and never recovered, losing seven of their last eight games to finish at 6-11. The 49ers were the top seed in 2023, No. 2 in 2022, without much drama when it came to being tournament-eligible.

Now the 49ers are 7-4, better than they have any right to be considering they lost defen

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