49ers vs. Atlanta Falcons

Atlanta 20, 49ers 17. First defeat of the season at Candlestick on Sun September 28 falls by three points. The 49ers came into the divisional home opener at 3-0 and met the team most picked to win the NFC West. Three-point margin, the third one-score game in four weeks. Record drops to 3-1. The home loss ends the season-opening winning streak.[1][2][3]

Three and one. A three-point home loss to Atlanta and the divisional lead in the NFC West goes to the visitor's column. The result is the same shape as this team's wins this year, decided by three, with the kicking game involved in the margin. The difference is that Sunday's field-position math went the other way. Atlanta is the better team in the conference's preseason book, and the book on this game would say the favorites took it on the road by the smallest margin. The home side played them even. The point of week four is not to win a season in a single afternoon, it is to find out whether the start was real. The answer, on this evidence, is that it was real enough to play with the team picked to win the division. It was not yet enough to beat them. A coaching project has both numbers in it. Today's was the one this group has not had to think about yet.

First loss of the year. Scoring differential slides from plus-16 to plus-13. Four-week margin profile: plus-3, plus-3, plus-10, minus-3. Three of four games decided by exactly three points. Average points scored per game so far 26.0; allowed 23.5. Next: at the Los Angeles Rams, the second divisional road game in five weeks.

Playing Atlanta even and losing by three is both a compliment and a warning. The compliment is structural: through four weeks the home side has been within a possession of every opponent on its schedule, including the team most picked to win the division. The warning is mechanical: in three of those four games the margin has been exactly three points, and on Sunday the kicking math and field-position math fell against the home team. Atlanta's quarterback is the talent the rest of the conference has been on alert for, and his offense produced enough Sunday to win without producing the kind of day that flatters the box score. The defense did not get blown off the ball. The offense did not give the game away. The kicking game did not lose the points it has won twice already. The margin came down to a couple of possessions that bend differently in close games. Across four weeks, this group has established that it is a competitive team. Whether it is a winning team in the division is still being written, and the next divisional road game arrives in seven days.