Mike McDaniel knows better than anyone what the 49ers bring to the table -- even if not at full strength.
The Miami Dolphins coach, who spent five seasons with San Francisco, is preparing for a Week 16 game against his former team missing several of its key players. Nonetheless, he's game-planning for a competitive Week 16 showdown on Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium.
"The NFL is hard. The success breeds tough times ahead because when you're a good team, especially for as long as the San Francisco 49ers have been, there's not one team that lines up on Sunday and takes them lightly," McDaniel told reporters Wednesday. "It's a litmus test of sorts for every team you play. Every team has different sorts of injuries. And you have different sorts of consequences because of those injuries. I know one thing about the San Francisco 49ers, having worked there for five years, knowing the coaching staff and a good amount of the core of players there. It's a very, very prideful team in playing good football.
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"As you go through it, sometimes you have success, sometimes you have failures in this league, but it's the consistency with which you attack things. Do you let things define you or do you take from things so that you can further define the future? I think they're certainly frustrated, as we are. It's been a trying year. But in no way shape or form do I expect anything but their best. Ultimately, just knowing the quality of people, they'll get through it and find a way to make their best version of themselves moving forward."
The 49ers, like McDaniel's Dolphins, haven't had the season they -- or the rest of the NFL world -- might have expected.
San Francisco, which has ruled the NFC West for years, has fallen to last place in the division with a 6-8 record.
Miami, too, holds a 6-8 record entering Week 16, but sits in second place in the AFC East.
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The 49ers' playoff hopes are holding on by a very, very thin string with three games remaining in the regular season. But that won't prevent them from displaying their best possible football on Sunday in South Beach -- and McDaniel knows it.