Seahawks face 49ers with season near the precipice

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Jim Harbaugh is gone.

So, too, is much of the luster from a rivalry that for the past three years has been one of the more heated in the NFL. Both the Seahawks and 49ers are 2-4 as they meet for the first time this season Thursday night.

But the Seahawks maintain that their hopes for the 2015 season have not diminished.

“We are very confident,’’ linebacker K.J. Wright said. “This is a good football team. I know our record says otherwise. But this is a good football team. We have been playing really good football. We’ve just got to keep doing it and keep doing it, and things will eventually go our way.’’

Time, though, is running out.

Only 14 of 168 teams to start 2-4 have reached the playoffs since they expanded to 12 teams in 1990. Only four teams in that time span have done it after starting 2-5.

Seahawks players said this week that they weren’t concerned with the long odds. Nor, they said, have they been dissuaded by the route they have taken to reach this point. They have held the lead during the fourth quarter in all their losses.

“Extremely positive,’’ middle linebacker Bobby Wagner said when asked this week about his mood. “Just like everybody in this room. You can either get down or figure out the problem and move forward. So I think everybody is staying positive, and we know what we can do if we get this season going right.’’

Count Wagner among those who was glad the Seahawks had little time to pore over what happened Sunday in a 27-23 loss to Carolina. They have been forced to turn their attention to the 49ers – the only Thursday night game the Seahawks will play this season.

“I like that we play on Thursday, because I think we’ve got a lot of bad taste in our mouth for the last two games,’’ he said. “So it gives us an opportunity earlier in the week to kind of get rid of that. Everybody wants to get back on the field as early as possible and get a win.’’

Maybe it helps that some of the greater moments for the core of this Seahawks team have come against the 49ers.

There was the 42-13 demolition of a Super Bowl-bound 49ers team late in the 2012 season that might have been the Legion of Boom’s true coming-out party.

There was the NFC title game win after the 2013 season, which is in the conversation as the greatest moment in Seattle sports history.

And there was the 19-3 throttling of the 49ers last Thanksgiving night (punctuated by the NBC-inspired eating of a turkey at midfield afterward) that began their ascent back to another Super Bowl after a 6-4 start.

The presence of Harbaugh, who is now coaching at Michigan, and his history with Seahawks coach Pete Carroll from their Pac-12 coaching days, seemed to add to the fervor, though Carroll again said this week that their rivalry was largely a media creation.

“All that talk was really your guys’ talk,’’ he said. “It was never my talk.”

Regardless, the rivalry has changed with Harbaugh gone. The Seahawks hope Thursday night’s game it could be a different type of renewal.

One factor that could work in their favor: The Seahawks’ four losses were to teams that have a 19-3 total record, but just four of their final 10 games are against teams with a winning record.

Although their fourth-quarter collapses have been perplexing, players this week tried largely to put a happy face on the situation, pointing to solid play of the first three quarters.

Still, the last image of this team was the 26-yard touchdown pass from Cam Newton to Greg Olsen that lifted the Panthers to a win. Safety Earl Thomas and cornerback Richard Sherman quickly pointed fingers at each other while attempting to figure out what had gone wrong. It was a mix-up of coverages, with half the team essentially playing one defense and the other half another.

Wright, who was the middle linebacker filling in for an injured Wagner, lamented that it was one of just two times all game when the defense got its signals crossed. That it resulted in the winning touchdown, he said, “is sort of the theme of our season.”

But not one, he said, that has to continue.

“I don’t believe our season will keep going like this,’’ Wright said. “Or that we will keep giving up games like this. It’s not in our DNA. We will turn it around. I believe the guys on this team will stay positive and play hard, and we will just find a way.’’