IT’S TIME TO WIN

here’s a mandate for the 49ers this season, one that’s understood by everyone wearing red and gold in Santa Clara: It’s time to win some damn games.

We’re now twoplus years and only 10 wins into the Kyle Shanahan era, so while there might be good vibes and abundant potential, there’s simply no more patience for losing.

Ready or not, the rebuild is over.

This is the season when Levi’s Stadium needs to host meaningful November and December games. This is the season when quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo must prove that he was worth the 49ers’ investment. This is the season when the team doesn’t even sniff a top-10 pick in the NFL Draft.

And if those things don’t happen?

While it might not be a makeor-break, do-or-die situation for the 49ers’ head coach — who is signed to a six-year contract — his hand-picked general manager, hand-picked defensive coordinator, and hand-picked quarterback

Dieter Kurtenbach

might not be so lucky.

Of course, Shanahan and the 49ers have no interest in finding out what happens if this team doesn’t live up to the lingering promise that’s been floating around Santa Clara since Garoppolo took over as the team’s starting quarterback in December 2017.

But it doesn’t matter how anyone feels. Ready or not, this is the season when questions will be answered.

The good news is that the 49ers have the pieces in place to not only improve on last year’s four-win campaign — they have enough talent on the roster to seriously contend for the playoffs.

With this being the NFL, everything starts at quarterback. Garoppolo has started eight games for the 49ers over the last two seasons — just enough of a sample size to enrapture an entire fanbase but not enough to definitively state whether he’s an elite quarterback.

We should find out if he’s the real deal or not in 2019, so long as he can play a full season coming off a torn ACL, suffered in Week 3 last year. The best ability, after all, is availability.

Garoppolo will not lack for weapons around him: Tight end

George Kittle became the Niners’ de facto No. 1 receiver and one of the NFL’s best players last season, there’s a deep roster of versatile playmakers at wide receiver, and you can argue that no team in the NFL has a better backfield than San Francisco. One of the best running backs in the NFL last year — Matt Breida — is slated to be a third-stringer.

Remember, the Niners were able to put up points with undrafted quarterback Nick Mullens last season — Shanahan’s outside zone, play-action offense is perfectly built for this era of football and now they’re upgrading at the most important position on the field (and a few other spots, too).

The formula is simple: If the offensive line can keep Garoppolo upright, and if the quarterback is as good as advertised, there’s no reason to think that the 49ers cannot have a top-10 offense in 2019.

But to make the playoffs, the Niners will have to take a big step forward on the side of the ball where Shanahan isn’t a genius.

Can the 49ers’ defense lift the team into contention?

A massively improved defensive line should help with that. The Niners had an anemic pass rush last season, but the additions of former Chiefs defensive end Dee

Ford and second-overall draft pick Nick Bosa, as well as a new, simplified scheme up front, might give the Niners one of the best pass-rush units in the league in 2019. The hope is that consistent quarterback pressure will make life easier for a secondary that was absolutely toasted on both coasts and everywhere in between last season.

But in that secondary, the Niners only added one cornerback in free agency — the oft-injured but unquestionably talented Jason Verrett — and selected only one in the NFL Draft, in the sixth round. In short, the Niners and defensive coordinator Robert Saleh are rolling the dice with pretty much the same crew as last year. The popular topic of conversation this past offseason around the NFL was that teams now need to build from back to front on defense. The 49ers have done the opposite — we’ll see which camp is right.

So much about these Niners screams 8-8. They’re competent, talented and well coached. They have a bit of depth and should find themselves with much better injury and turnover luck in 2019.

An 8-8 record would be solid; a bit of clear improvement that adds some intrigue to the final weeks of the season (for reasons other than NFL Draft position).

But in this league, there are at least a dozen 8-8 teams, and only a few will actually end with that record. No, some will win one, two, three more games, making the playoffs and perhaps even winning a game there, too. Others will fall one, two, three games under that .500 mark, resulting in high draft picks and rolling heads.

The only difference between those teams is a few bounces of the ball, a key injury, a call here or there, or a missed field goal.

So can the 49ers be on the fortuitous side of luck this season? Have they paid enough penance to the football gods over the past two years?

If not, the blame won’t rest solely on cosmic forces.