The San Francisco 49ers had a demon on the chest that, despite the success under former head coach Jim Harbaugh earlier this decade, they could never remove.
It was the demon to the North, the Seattle Seahawks.
Not during their 2012 Super Bowl season, not during their 2013 efforts that fizzled in CenturyLink Field. And as the Niners fizzled, they still regularly got pounded up in Seattle.
With the NFC West, and by extension, the first seed in the conference up for grabs as this iteration of the 49ers headed up north, there was a sense that this Week 17 Sunday Night Football game, which already meant so much, could somehow mean more.