SANTA CLARA — By rights, they should have been at their own game, the one they earned. The Paradise High football team finished 8-2 and was barreling toward the section playoffs before the Camp Fire torched everything they owned — their town, their homes, their season.
So the 49ers offered them an escape route. The team arranged for a bus to pick up the heartbroken players in Chico and drive them to the Bay Area, where so much wayward smoke proceeded them. The Bobcats got their football game, all right, standing on the sideline during the national anthem of a Monday Night Football showdown between the 49ers and Giants.