Andrew takes a deep on the schedule, and lumps each game into their own category
We have known the who and the were of the 49ers’ 2024 opponents for a while now, and on Wednesday, we finally learned the when.
Schedule release day is always fun because it feels like the last off-season procedural hump to get over because everything after this happens on some sort of field, whether it be camp or preseason games. The news of Week 1 against the New York Jets came out a little early, so we knew about that, but we found out on Wednesday that the 49ers are scheduled for five other primetime games, including against Dallas and Buffalo.
With the order now known, let’s break the 49ers 17 games into different categories and also predict where the wins and losses are:
Should be wins
Week 2 – at Minnesota Vikings
Week 4 – vs. New England Patriots
Week 10 – at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
As a tradition, my first run-through of the 49ers’ schedule included writing 17 Ws in Sharpie. But after that initial high with the mere thought of perfection, I became slightly more realistic. These were the three games the patented Pasquini NFL Simulator* gave the 49ers a more than 85 percent chance to win.
*As accurate as the average blogger/podcaster
The 49ers will face one or two rookie quarterbacks in the first month of the season, with the trip to Minnesota and the game against New England to close September. Drake Maye will likely be the Patriots Week 4 starter, but the Vikings quarterback situation isn’t too clear right now.
The Vikings used the 10th overall selection on JJ McCarthy after signing former 49er Sam Darnold. A competition is likely, with the winner rewarded a Week 2 matchup against one of the best defenses in the league. If McCarthy wins that battle, the 49ers defense would be gifted two rookie quarterbacks in the season’s first month.
Tampa Bay sticks out a bit here as the lone playoff team in this group, but somebody had to win the NFC South, and the nine-win Buccaneers were up for the task. On top of that, Tampa Bay is one of five teams the 49ers have played at least twice (including the NFC West) in the last two regular seasons. Here are those games sorted by the 49ers combined margin of victory:
1 – Arizona: +88 (4 games)
2 – Seattle: +58 (4)
3 – Tampa Bay: +41 (2)
4 – Los Angeles: +38 (4)
5 – Washington: +34 (2)
If you go off of averages, only Arizona has been worse off against San Francisco than the Buccaneers. Ownage is ownage, and the 49ers own Tampa Bay.
Chalk the 49ers up to 3-0 in this category.
You just never know with divisional games
Week 3 – at Los Angeles Rams
Week 5 – vs. Arizona Cardinals
Week 6 – at Seattle Seahawks (Thursday Night Football)
Week 11 – vs. Seattle Seahawks
Week 15 – vs. Los Angeles Rams (Thursday Night Football)
Week 18 – at Arizona Cardinals
I may have just said some mean things about the Cardinals, but these Cardinals aren’t those Cardinals. That’s not to say Arizona is going to be a threat to the 49ers’ NFC West crown, but they are shaping up to be a team that can compete with any team on any given Sunday. They’ll have a fully healthy Kyler Murray with a new weapon in Marvin Harrison Jr., who’s included in the group of seven players drafted by Arizona with the first 100 picks in last month’s draft.
Do the 49ers sweep the Cardinals once again? That could be likely, but they’ll unlikely do it at the three-score clip they’ve averaged the last two seasons.
That leaves the Rams and the Seahawks. While San Francisco has won the NFC West each of the last two seasons, the division crown has rotated between these teams every season since 2015, with all three winning the West at least once since 2020.
San Francisco is 3-1 against Seattle and Los Angeles over the last two seasons – with the lone loss the reason I am confident in the 49ers beating Minnesota with either McCarthy or Darnold – so the ownage is there, just like with Arizona and Tampa Bay. However, the Rams and Seahawks feel much closer to San Francisco regarding talent than the former two teams.
The 49ers could sweep the division as they did in 2022, but let’s hedge some bets and say the 49ers will be 4-2 against the division in 2024 with those two Thursday Night games in mind. To be fair, the 49ers are 2-0 in the last two seasons on Thursday night in Seattle.
A 4-2 record in the division moves our mid-May prediction to 7-2.
The opening seven hours of commercial-free football
Week 1 – vs. New York Jets (Monday Night Football)
Week 1 Sunday usually means for me turning NFL Red Zone on at 9 am sharp to watch the timer count down from 60 minutes with the dramatic football-like instrumentals playing in the background before locking in for Scott Hansen to say the thing as the morning slate kicks off.
I say usually because, in the last three seasons, the 49ers have opened their season in the 10 am time slot, the meat and potatoes of every NFL Red Zone Sunday.
This problem won’t exist this year because not only do the 49ers not play a Sunday morning game in Week 1 for the first time since 2020, but San Francisco will also play a non-Sunday opener for the first time since 2016.
Not only has the 49ers’ home opener been rare recently – 2024 marks the third time under Shanahan that San Francisco opens at Levi’s Stadium – but it will be the first time it hosts a season-opener against an AFC team since 1998. That game was also against the Jets, with the famous Garrison Hearst 96-yard game-winning scamper and Terrell Owens blocking out in front.
Plenty of Jets will return to Levi’s in the opener, like Robert Saleh, Javon Kinlaw, and Isaiah Oliver, but the return of Aaron Rodgers in his Jets debut part deux will be the headline. Leonard Floyd makes the game-ending, non-injury-inducing sack of Rodgers to start the 49ers season with a win and move our hypothetical San Francisco squad to 8-2.
Group of death
Week 12 – at Green Bay Packers
Week 13 – at Buffalo Bills (Sunday Night Football)
Week 14 – vs Chicago Bears
Week 15 – vs Los Angeles Rams (Thursday Night Football)
Week 16 – at Miami Dolphins
Week 17 – vs. Detroit Lions (Monday Night Football)
The only negative about being a good football team is you get scheduled against other good football teams. Before we look at the stretch as a whole, let’s take a look at those first two games using a high school superlative:
Most likely to blame losses on the weather
Week 12 – at Green Bay Packers
Week 13 – at Buffalo Bills (Sunday Night Football)
The 49ers have a recent history of bad weather games. 2019 was the start with a 9-0 win in Washington during a downpour. About a month and a half later, San Francisco suffered its second loss of 2019 against Baltimore in another wet game. The weather found its way to Santa Clara a couple of years later when the Carson Wentz-led Indianapolis Colts dominated San Francisco in a 30-18 win – the following season had the infamous monsoon game in Chicago to open 2022 with a loss. Even 2023 saw a lousy weather loss, with the Browns handing San Francisco its first loss of the season in a wet and windy Cleveland.
The 49ers went 1-4 in those five games against teams that finished a combined 40-43 in their respective season. The Packers and Bills went a combined 20-14 in 2023 and will likely be better than any of the above teams outside the 2019 Ravens.
The average temperature in Green Bay on November 24th is anywhere from 29 to 37 degrees. Buffalo isn’t too much warmer in the first week of December. These two games have a completely different feel if they are played in September, but potential consecutive bad-weather games that late in the season could spell trouble for the 49ers.
The Bears are the figurative (maybe literal) “what the hell is a polar bear doing in Texas” meme in this group. Chicago is the only team in this six-game stretch that wasn’t a playoff team but is a popular pick to be the most improved team for 2024.
Unlike facing Maye and potentially McCarthy in the first month of the season, the 49ers will see Caleb Williams for the first time with 14-plus weeks of experience throwing to DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, and Rome Odunze. Chicago might not fit in the group now, but come December, they could be in playoff contention.
We already touched on the Rams’ Week 15, so let’s move on to the final two weeks of the stretch. The Dolphins are 3-6 in December in two seasons under Mike McDaniels, including a winless month to close 2022 that started with a loss to the 49ers in Brock Purdy’s first meaningful playing time. But a cross-country trip – although a usual 1:25 p.m. kickoff – could make this game more complicated than needed.
The stretch closes with the final Monday Night Football game of the 2024 season, a home game against the Lions. Maybe not for ESPN, but ideally, this game means nothing for the 49ers, and the division and seeding are clinched because the alternative is this game having enormous implications for the NFC playoffs.
We already called the Thursday night game against Los Angeles a loss, so let’s say the 49ers split the Green Bay/Buffalo double-dip and take care of business against Chicago, Miami, and Detroit. 12-3 through 15 games isn’t too shabby.
Call your friends and let them know you love them before kickoff
Week 7 – vs. Kansas City Chiefs
This just seems like a miserable Sunday. Sure, it’s a Super Bowl rematch and has the potential to be a very fun football game.
That is until the FOX broadcast mentions the last time these two teams play. But at least the good news is there isn’t a second notable game in recent history to talk about, right?
Right?
… gulp, right?
The 49ers have only defeated the Chiefs once since high-definition television became the standard in six tries and only three times in eleven games since Yours Truly was born in 1992. Sure, Kansas City could look like they did in the regular season last year, and the 49ers could win this game, but that would mean Patrick Mahomes didn’t ruin a Sunday in the Bay Area, and he’s made a living doing just that.
12-4.
A nice little bounce-back
Week 8 – vs Dallas Cowboys (Sunday Night Football)
At least in recent years, the Chiefs are to the 49ers what the 49ers are to the Dallas Cowboys.
While the Cowboys have had their shot under Mike McCarthy against Kyle Shanahan, Dallas is 1-3 in four games since McCarthy took over, with the lone win being in 2020, a season 49ers fans like to forget. Since the 2020 loss, San Francisco has gone undefeated, including bumping Dallas from the postseason in both 2021 and 2022. After losing the two postseason games by a combined 13 points, Dallas returned to Levi’s Stadium last season to the tune of a 32-point defeat in 2023.
Just like with the Kansas City game, Week 8 has the potential to be a good one, but until McCarthy can get over the hump and defeat Shanahan and a healthy 49ers team, this is San Francisco’s game to lose.
That puts the 49ers, after reading a list of team names and putting a W or L next to them, at 13-4, one game better than the 2023 version of the team.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login