Programming note: For comprehensive 49ers coverage from Santa Clara, watch SportsNet Central tonight at 6, 10:30 and midnight on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area.
A long time ago it was always the Bears who were the scary, physical team that no one wanted to play.
The San Francisco 49ers of Bill Walsh were typecast – miscast – as the finesse team. The 49ers didn’t like the label any more than the Bears liked being cast as thugs more interested in body count than score.
Now there are questions about the toughness and physicality of the Bears after their being pushed around most of last season and by the Buffalo Bills last Sunday.
But there are none about the 49ers, who have taken on a persona unlike the California-quiche-eater stereotyping that was put on them in the 1980s.
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Going into Sunday’s game, it is the 49ers who are the acknowledged tough guys and who are fine with body count as a way to win.
“This is a [San Francisco] team that when you catch a football underneath like they make you throw a lot of times, they’ll come up,” said offensive coordinator Aaron Kromer. “They draft physical guys....
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