Yes, I am aware the San Francisco 49ers’ defense allowed a 44-year-old Philip Rivers to drive the field for long stretches of Monday night’s three-touchdown victory. Yes, I’m aware that defense has its only two Pro Bowl talents sitting on injured reserve. And yes, I’m aware their defensive coordinator recently said he “gave up on yardage a long time ago.”

Under normal circumstances, a defense like the one I described above would disqualify that team from any sentence containing “Super Bowl” in it. But this season is hardly normal. The Los Angeles Rams and Seattle Seahawks, considered by most NFL pundits to be the best two NFC teams, both lost to the 49ers earlier this season. The rest of the likely NFC playoff field has issues ranging from “our star pass rusher who was supposed to stop us from losing to the 49ers every January tore his ACL” to “our offensive coordinator is so bad fans egged his house.”

So yes, I am going to say that the 49ers have a very realistic shot at winning the Super Bowl this year. Which is to say, you’d be hard pressed to convince me there is another team out there who has a dramatically better shot than San Francisco, who may not have to play another game outside Levi’s Stadium this year.

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Before discussing how the 49ers match up against the parade of flawed teams they may face along the way, I’m going to explain how, to the surprise of even the most optimistic Niners watchers, the team is surviving the Fred Warner and Nick Bosa injuries on defense — and why that unit has real upside to be better in January.

First of all, the Monday night returns of linebacker Tatum Bethune and defensive lineman Yetur Gross-Matos demonstrated that the 49ers can, at the very least, stop the run. I would not be writing this column if this were not the case. A week after giving up over 6 yards per carry to the offensively challenged Tennessee Titans, the reinforced 49ers’ front seven held Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor, the second-leading rusher in the NFL, to under 3 yards per carry. The pass defense was shaky, but........

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