By Daisy Barringer

There is nothing more annoying than the part of my drive home from Tahoe when Sacramento’s NPR goes out and San Francisco’s NPR is on a different schedule. (Now I’ll never hear the end of that Lemony Snickett interview!) When this happened last night, I turned on 95.7 The Game. Do you ever listen to that station? For 45 minutes, I was forced to hear callers debate whether or not it was important for the 49ers to earn a bye week in the playoffs. FORTY-FIVE MINUTES. And there were seriously people who were like, “Oh, it’s no big deal. They’ll go to the Super Bowl no matter what.” One guy even said, "I hope they don’t get a bye because then they’ll just be out drinking and celebrating instead of practicing." Right.

Listen, I'm all for being faithful, but faithful and a moron? Nokay.

The Niners absolutely need to earn the Number Two seed in the playoffs and get a bye. I trust my readers are smart enough to understand why not having to play an extra game in the playoffs is only to the Niners’ advantage, so I’ll refrain from patronizing you with simple explanations (rest, time to recover from injuries, home-field advantage, not giving ourselves the opportunity to lose) and just say that we really need to beat Seattle on Sunday. Oh, and it’d be amazing if Green Bay could lose to Tennessee. Then the Niners would clinch the first round bye and all of my Christmas Dreams would come true.

But how to get there…

The Good

• Colin Kaepernick on the road. THERE: I SAID IT. Yes, I am still mad about how Harbaugh handled the Alex Smith situation and I will 100% blame karma (or Akers) if we don’t make it to the Super Bowl, but Kap looks good and he looks good on the road and he looks good in primetime. He was even named the NFC’s Offensive Player of the week! Of course, the last time a 49ers player did that, he was then benched following his concussion. (Bitter: it's not a good look, but it’s not like I leave my apartment anyway.)

• Kap to Crabtree. It’s a thing of beauty. No denying it. Now I just wish I could see him throw to Vernon Davis a little more.

• The 49ers look good in big high-stakes game situations and this is definitely one of those. We beat Green Bay, New Orleans, and New England on the road and the Bears at home on Monday night. I see no reason why we can’t beat Seattle in prime time on Sunday.

• Seattle DT Jason Jones was placed on injured reserve yesterday. Definitely a big hit to Seattle’s defensive line, which is good for us!

• Pete Carroll is a little bitch. (I might get censored by SFist for saying that, but it’s true.) I can’t stand him. And to think at one point, I thought he was handsome. Gross, Daisy. Gross!!!

• Mostly I just think the Niners are the better team. If they can stay focused, not make stupid mistakes, and play hard, then San Francisco should take this. No dumb penalties, no delays of game, no false starts… You know the drill.

The Bad

• WWL. Win-win-loss (or tie). That’s the pattern the 49ers have maintained all season. Since we won our last two games against the Dolphins and the Patriots, that means we are “due” for a loss. I don’t know if it’s that the Niners get overly confident or are just tired, but whatever the reason for this scenario, it needs to end on Sunday.

• Seattle’s run defense is ranked 10th in the NFL. This could pose a problem, but I just see Frank Gore and LaMichael James figuring out a way to get through and around it.

• Marshawn Lynch. Yes, the Niners have an amazing run defense, but Marshawn Lynch is the second-leading rusher in the league (behind Adrian Peterson), so he’s clearly a force to be reckoned with and the Niners have got to contain him.

• David Akers. Look. I don’t think people should be sending the dude death threats, but the fact of the matter is, the guy is off of his game and it's having a negative impact on the team. He needs to make his field goal attempts. Plain and simple.

• Justin Smith. Coach Harbaugh said he will be on the field on Sunday if “humanly possible,” but Smith (who has streak of 185 starts) hasn’t practiced all week. Obviously Justin Smith is one of our best defensive players and he’s also key to setting up Aldon Smith sacks. Even if he does play, his elbow injury could prevent him from being as effective, so I know all I said was that I wanted Santa to bring me a win, but also if he could please bring me a healthy Justin Smith, that would be lovely. (WHAT? The only present I’m getting this year is a Sonicare toothbrush from my mom. I'm totally allowed to ask for more.)

• Seattle is undefeated at home this season. Of course, the Niners snapped the Patriots 20-game home winning streak last week, so no reason why we can’t snap another this week.

• Crowd noise. Or the “12th Man.” Whatever you want to call it, the fact remains that Seattle is one of the loudest stadiums in the NFL. The Niners have some fancy snap-count thing-a-ma-bob they’re doing that means there’s no shouting involved, so hopefully that will help. Another thing that will help is scoring early and shutting the fans up.

The Rest of It

• With a win, the 49ers clinch the NFC West. The Seahawks need to win one of their last two to clinch a wild card berth. They definitely have something to play for. But so do we.

• Also, I know it looks like I wrote a lot of bad things, but I do think the Niners can win this game. It’s going to be a nail-biter and it’s going to be tough, but I believe we can hand the Seahawks at loss at home and I believe it will feel amazing when we do so.

Watch the 49ers at Seattle on Sunday at 5:20 p.m. PT on NBC.