Jerry Rice says 49ers will win the Super Bowl despite killer second half schedule

If it’s Monday, it must be time for Jerry Rice to predict a Super Bowl championship for the 49ers. Yes, this year’s 49ers. Appearing Monday on ESPN’S “First Take,” Rice _ whose zeal for his former team makes you wonder if he’s angling for an appointment to the club’s public relations staff _ started slowly, hawking his new book “America’s Game.” Then he got to the meat of the matter. “They’re going to continue winning,” Rice said of his former team. “They’re going to win the whole thing. I picked them from Day 1. Jimmy G’s going to get them to the promised land.”

He’s not lying about Day 1. He was spreading the gospel even before training camp. It was after the 49ers’ kneecapping of the Bengals in Cincinnati, to start the season 2-0, that he dropped his first “S.B.” bomb.

He hasn’t let up since. He even attempted to conscript into the movement Stephen A. Smith, who has made his contempt of 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo well known.

At this point, it appears there is only one thing that might get Rice to lower his expectations: Cold, hard facts.

The eight teams the 49ers skunked in the first half of the season were by and large powder puffs with a composite record of 22-43-1 (as we speak), and only two winning teams (the Rams and Carolina).

Garoppolo’s Heroes face a gauntlet (death march?) in the second half. The team’s final eight opponents have a composite record of 43-24-1 (as we speak). Six of the eight are above .500. Four have seven wins.

“Hear me right now,” Rice said of the 49ers, “they’re going to win the Super Bowl.”