Despite San Francisco’s impressive 12-3 record, the 49ers’ offense leads the league in only one category — protecting the football.

San Francisco hasn’t committed a turnover in its last four games and leads the league in fewest giveaways with 10. If the 49ers don’t commit a turnover in Sunday’s season finale at St. Louis, they will tie the NFL record for fewest turnovers in a season, set last year by New England.

The 49ers also lead the league with 36 takeaways, making their plus-26 turnover differential the NFL’s best. San Francisco ranks just 26th in the league in total offense, but that unit has contributed to the team’s successful formula by limiting mistakes and holding onto the ball.

The 49ers had a minus-1 turnover differential last season, when they committed 23 turnovers. The team’s skill players on offense are essentially the same as last year, but the big change has come in the methodology of first-year coach Jim Harbaugh and his staff that has transformed San Francisco into a contender after eight seasons without a winning record or playoff berth.

“There are other things that go into it other than, ‘Hey, guys, let’s just take care of the ball today,’” Harbaugh said Friday after his team’s final practice of the regular season. “There is scheme, there’s philosophy that goes in there. It’s the pride that the players have in protecting the football, understanding situational football.”

Harbaugh said the 49ers have emphasized that scheme since the team’s first practice in July, and it certainly has showed in the results. San Francisco has not committed a turnover in its past 18 quarters since quarterback Alex Smith threw an end-zone interception in the final seconds before halftime of a Thanksgiving Day loss at Baltimore.

Smith has been the catalyst behind San Francisco’s low turnover rate. The seventh-year pro from Utah has thrown 415 passes this season but only five have been intercepted, the fewest of any starting quarterback in the league.

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Around the league

Dolphins • Running back Reggie Bush, a 1,000-yard rusher this year for the first time in his six-year career, will miss Sunday’s season finale against the Jets with a knee injury he suffered last week against New England.

Raiders • Receiver Jacoby Ford made it through a third straight practice without any setbacks and expects to play in Oakland’s regular-season finale against San Diego. Ford hasn’t played since injuring his left foot during Oakland’s win in San Diego on Nov. 10.

Packers • Green Bay will be without three key players on offense against Detroit. Running back James Starks (knee/ankle), receiver/kick returner Randall Cobb (groin) and receiver Greg Jennings (knee), who has missed the last two games, won’t play in the regular-season finale. Coach Mike McCarthy would not say Friday whether quarterback Aaron Rodgers will sit out.

Patriots • Tom Brady is listed as “probable” on New England’s injury report for its regular-season finale against Buffalo. An injury to his left, non-throwing shoulder limited Brady’s participation in practice Friday for a second straight day after he sat out practice on Wednesday.

ST. LOUIS – A month ago, the San Francisco 49ers became the first team to clinch its division, shutting out the St. Louis Rams to win the NFC West. Beat them again in the finale, and there’s a nice bonus for the Niners: the No. 2 seed in the NFC and a first-round bye.

Sure, they’re in. There’s still plenty of incentive for a franchise that’s made a rapid rise to the top under rookie head coach Jim Harbaugh.

“Any time you could lock up a bye, you’d take it,” quarterback Alex Smith said. “Great opportunity for us, we’ve just got to go seize it.”

They couldn’t have picked a more vulnerable opponent.

The bedraggled Rams (2-13) are in danger of a dubious honour — landing the No. 1 pick in the draft for the second time in three years. All it’ll take is dropping their seventh in a row and the Colts winning at Jacksonville and again they will be at the bottom of the barrel.

St. Louis, just 10-37 under third-year coach Steve Spagnuolo and 12-51 with fourth-year general manager Billy Devaney, could be on the verge of a housecleaning. That’s led to a lot of questions this week about trying to save Spagnuolo’s job.

“We don’t worry about things we can’t control,” middle linebacker James Laurinaitis said. “He’s that way, we’re that way. We’re just going to go out there and play our rear ends off.”

Owner Stan Kroenke has been silent on the subject of what comes next for the Rams, who had been viewed as a franchise on the rise after last year’s six-win improvement. Now they’re playing to a half-full stadium and reduced to muttering about injuries that have decimated the secondary and offensive line besides a persistent high left ankle sprain that almost assuredly will knock out quarterback Sam Bradford for a sixth game.

Attendance is likely to be more sparse than usual given the noon CT start coming off New Year’s Eve partying. The Rams asked Thursday for a 24-hour extension to meet NFL sellout requirements.

The 49ers (12-3) have already doubled their win total from a disappointing 2010 season, and even with a loss can get the No. 2 seed and bye if the Saints lose at home against the Panthers. If they can repeat the performance from the 26-0 whipping they handed out in San Francisco, Harbaugh would be just the fourth coach in NFL history to win 13 games in his first year. Two 49ers coaches have already done it, George Seifert going 14-2 in 1989 and Steve Mariucci at 13-3 in 1997.

San Francisco could also land its first 13-win season since ’97. A sixth road win would match their total from the previous three seasons, rewarding them for attention to detail.

“The biggest thing that I’d point to is a lot of little reasons that a lot of people think are the minutia that aren’t important that add up to make all the difference,” Harbaugh said. “And our guys continually do the little things, and they stack on each other and they build on each other. And lo and behold, you win games in high pressure situations, or find ways to do enough things right to win games and get better.

“Enough of those things lead to championships.”

The 49ers are stout on defence, on pace for a franchise record while allowing a league-low 13.5 points per game, and sound on offence behind comeback quarterback Alex Smith. They lead the NFL with a plus-26 turnover ratio, with the most takeaways (36) and the fewest turnovers (10) in the league.

Aldon Smith has 14 sacks, one shy of the NFL rookie record. Cornerback Carlos Rogers and free safety Dashon Goldson, two of the 49ers’ four Pro Bowl starters on defence, have six interceptions apiece.

Kicker David Akers, who has set an NFL record with 42 field goals, and punter Andy Lee are both Pro Bowlers, too.

They’ve stayed healthy, too, with 30 players appearing in every game and 12 making every start. That dwarfs the Rams’ totals of 14 and four. The 49ers have eight Pro Bowl representatives, the Rams none.

“They’ve put it together and you get on a roll,” Spagnuolo said. “It works both ways. You get on a roll winning, confidence and boom, boom, things are working and clicking.

“It happens the other way, too, where you can’t really find any continuity.”

The 49ers have won six of seven in a series knotted at 61-61-2, and Frank Gore always seems to get some of his best days against the Rams, totalling 832 yards and 11 touchdowns in 10 games. He’ll be facing a defence in danger of setting a franchise record for rushing yards allowed in a season.

The Rams have been giving up an NFL-worst 154.5 yards per game and if they surrender 159 yards it’ll break the previous franchise worst in 2008. The 49ers got 144 yards the first time around.

The 49ers’ biggest worry might be encountering an opponent trying anything and everything to finish with a good taste.

“They have nothing to lose, so they can come out with whatever,” linebacker Patrick Willis said. “For us, there’s a lot riding on this game. We have to come out and play like we have all season. We know what’s at stake.”

Most every week, the Rams stay in it for a while and then a key play or two goes the wrong way and it snowballs to the finish of another failure. That was the case in the first meeting when the 49ers were held to three field goals in the first half, then busted loose with a pair of big plays — pass plays of 52 and 56 yards to Michael Crabtree and Kyle Williams.

Special teams have sprung several leaks in recent weeks, and the offence is the NFL’s worst, averaging just 11 points with 15 touchdowns in 15 games. They’re coming off a 27-0 loss at Pittsburgh, the second time they’ve been shut out the last month.

It’s been a complete bust of a comeback season for new offensive co-ordinator Josh McDaniels.

“No regrets, no regrets,” McDaniels said. “Every year is different, every year is a challenge in this league. You have to do everything you can to try to help the team win.”

More slogging lies ahead. The Rams totalled just 157 yards and were just 3 for 13 on third down in the first meeting against San Francisco.

Steven Jackson became the seventh player in NFL history to rush for 1,000 yards in seven straight seasons last week. Against the 49ers, he got just 19 yards on 10 carries.

“It was what we expected and they gave us exactly that,” Jackson said. “We’re going to have another tough time on Sunday but as long as you keep them balanced, and keep them out of what they want to do, we’ll be fine.”

Journeyman Kellen Clemens is expected to get his third straight start at quarterback. He passed for 91 yards last week in a 27-0 loss to the Steelers after throwing for 229 yards and a touchdown the previous week in a 20-13 loss to Cincinnati.

“If there’s a defence that’s better than Pittsburgh,” Clemens said, “we’re playing them this week.”

What’s made this 49ers season, this delightful journey, even more fulfilling is no one saw this coming. In a way, it’s similar to 1981, the year that changed the way the Bay Area, really the entire country, judged the franchise.

There were no expectations back then, other than the fact that somehow the Niners wouldn’t win. But as we know, they did win, and San Francisco, beside itself with joy, celebrated as it never did again. The first time never can be repeated.

We were skeptics back in ’81, even to the very moment Jim Stuckey recovered Danny White’s fumble, seconds after Dwight Clark made “The Catch” to give the Niners the 28-27 lead over Dallas and elevate them to their first Super Bowl.

An hour later, Bill Walsh, “The Genius,” the man who said he never read the papers, caught me in a quiet corner of the locker room and in true Walshian fashion, ordered, “You can stop writing we never win the big one.”

Which we did. After that, they won a spate of big ones. But until this season of 2011, for eight years, they couldn’t win many little ones. Enter Jim Harbaugh, the ghost of Walsh.  

No, the Niners aren’t as good as the Green Bay Packers (although 30 years ago they weren’t supposed to be as good as the Cowboys). Still, if San Francisco wins Sunday, it finishes with a 13-3 regular-season record, as did the ’81 Niners.

Walsh often used the word “resourceful,” finding a way to achieve. These Harbaugh Niners, like those of Walsh — and those of Walsh’s successor, George Seifert — have been very resourceful.

A blocked punt by Seattle turns into a touchdown? No sweat, the Niners find a way.

Harbaugh won at Stanford, as Walsh won at Stanford. You sensed a connection, although when the Niners were 2-1 and I suggested — no, insisted — Harbaugh had more than a small degree of Walsh in his thought, manner and motives, an emailer was adamant.

“Jim Harbaugh has a long way to go,” sneered the author on Sept. 16. “A long way. He hasn’t proved anything. The comparisons to Bill Walsh are absurd and wishful thinking. This is no comparison. So they both coached at Stanford? So what? College football is not the NFL … If they have a 3-3 record by the bye, it will be a miracle.”

To borrow from my pal Al Michaels, do you believe in miracles? Or in a coach who emphasizes defense — those people drafting for the Niners the last few years certainly deserve credit — and understands how to use Alex Smith.

Couldn’t win the big one? Great coaches make believers of their players, as well as of fans and media. The way the Niners overwhelmed the Steelers a week and a half ago, the way they rallied to defeat the Seahawks on Saturday, are reflections of a confident football team.

“Probably the biggest factor is they didn’t flinch,” Harbaugh said of the comeback at Seattle. “It was a matter of getting out there and making the necessary plays to win.”

They’ve made the plays, and they’ve made us remember the way it was back in ’81.

Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. Email him at typoes@aol.com.

The San Francisco 49ers are having quite the year. They have the NFL’s top-ranked rush defense, are number-one overall in points allowed (13.5 Pts/G), and lead the league in takeaways with 36. As for the offense, Alex Smith finally appears to be coming into his own as an NFL quarterback with the help of Jim Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Greg Roman, Frank Gore has rushed for 1,000 yards for the fifth time in his seven-year career, and Vernon Davis, while he may not be targeted as much, is still putting up good numbers with a 11.4 yards-per-catch average.

In fact, you could say the team is having a break-out year and that is exactly how I would choose to describe it. Especially considering the roster has not really changed much from the 2010 or even the 2009 season.

Now that the season is coming to a close -at least the regular season – the Pro Bowl selections have been announced and the 49ers are tied with the New England Patriots for sending the most players (eight) to their respective leagues’ teams.

The 49ers will be sending Frank Gore, Dashon Goldson, Justin Smith, Patrick Willis, Carlos Rogers, Joe Staley, David Akers, and Andy Lee. Four of those players have been elected to start – Willis, Rogers, Staley, and J. Smith – and several 49ers were named as alternates for the NFC team.

If anything the 49ers should be honored that so many of them were selected to the team. This is the most players the 49ers have sent to the Pro Bowl since 1994 and 1995 when they sent 10 players each year. And most of the players that were selected came from the defensive side of the ball where the 49ers have been playing strong all year.

As a fan I have to be completely satisfied with the amount of players that were sent. I know that not all players who may deserve a nod from our favorite teams may get to go. As for the 49ers, I really think that two more players should have been selected. NaVorro Bowman, who was actually named as an alternate, and rookie Aldon Smith, who leads the team with 14 sacks, should have easily made the squad. But as I said, I know not every player can be selected and A. Smith is still in the running for Defensive Rookie of the Year.

It has been so long since the 49ers have been able to send a large, quality group of guys to the Pro Bowl. Seeing the re-emergence of such a storied football franchise brings back plenty of great memories from the 49ers of the 1980s and their Super Bowl victories. Hopefully the 49ers will be too busy preparing for the Super Bowl to attend the Pro Bowl in 2012.

David is co-founder of wrapupp sports blog where they post fresh content daily and present sports blogs and sports opinions – all with a West Coast bias. Growing up in the Bay Area, David is a huge supporter of all the local sports teams; the Giants, Athletics, Warriors, Sharks, 49ers, and Raiders. His one fault, admittedly, as many of his friends and family would say, is his love for the Los Angeles Lakers. Growing up, Magic Johnson was his favorite basketball player and he fell in love with the team. He chalks it up to, “Not knowing any better”. Now his love for sports has turned just as academic as it is intuitive and he follows most all sports all over the nation.

You can follow David on Twitter: @officialwrapupp

Sources:

NFL.com. NFL Stats: Team and Player by Position. NFL 2011.

49ers.com. Eight 49ers Named to 2012 Pro Bowl. NFL 2011

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49ers Release WR Braylon Edwards: Fan Reaction

Saints Win; Accused of Running Up the Score: Fan Reaction

Oakland Raiders’ Season Comes Down to Week 17: Fan’s Take

San Francisco 49ers Poised to Capture Two-Seed in NFC: Fan’s Take

San Jose Sharks Fall to the Anaheim Ducks 3-2: Fan Reaction

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